Two Keighley businesses have added their support to the Conservative plans to reverse the National Insurance rise.

Tony Day, managing director of Marrose Engineering, and Leon and Carol Rymer, of Rymer Engineering, are among 400 small and medium sized businesses who signed a letter saying scrapping most of the Government’s planned NI rise would protect jobs and support the recovery.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said the plan would benefit anyone earning up to £45,400, although the new rate would apply to higher earners.

Mr Day said: “It is quite simple, I agree with their assertions that it is a tax on jobs. I believe that if it is not imposed there will be more disposable income in people’s wage packets and also I will have more money to invest in other ways for the business.”

Mrs Rymer said: “I am not sure the ordinary person knows what they pay in national Insurance is also matched and more by the employer. It is expensive enough as it is without going up.”

The support came a day after 58 economists signed up to a letter warning that the Tories’ £6 billion public spending cuts needed to fund the reduction in NI risked tipping the economy back into recession.