NORTH-WEST MPs will meet Treasury ministers within days to protest at their refusal to waive huge hikes in business rates that threaten jobs at Mersey port companies.

They vowed to step up the fight after around 50 firms went to Westminster to condemn a proposed “solution” to the row as “unrealistic, unworkable and unfair”.

Ministers have agreed to give firms up to eight years to pay crippling increases in their rates – backdated to April, 2005 – but that will still leave liabilities on their books, making some technically insolvent.

Furthermore, the companies argue, it will deliver an unfair competitive advantage to new firms moving in to the docks who will escape the backdating.

Yesterday, the firms packed a Parliamentary reception room to hear Labour MPs Claire Curtis-Thomas (Crosby) and Louise Ellman (Riverside) agree to press for the meeting before Christmas.

Ms Curtis-Thomas said: “The changes are very harsh because the companies didn’t know they were going to face these liabilities from three years ago, so they can’t recover cost from customers.”

And Mrs Ellman told the firms: “We have made some progress, but not enough, so we are arranging a meeting with the Treasury. We will work with you and for you.”

The gathering was organised by Ms Curtis-Thomas and the Mersey Dock Rating Group, which warned 3,000 jobs are at risk. Across the country, around 30,000 are under threat.

The revamp ends the system where the port authority has been responsible for payment of business rates, based on port turnover, and collected them as part of the rent charged to leaseholders. The switch to a direct levy on companies, based on the size of their premises, has been backdated to April, 2005, because the law demands five-yearly valuations.