A Tory conference in Maidstone has been used to increase pressure on the government to help people and businesses hit by the credit crunch.

Theresa May, shadow leader of the House of Commons and shadow minister for women, was the main speaker at the Russell Hotel, in Maidstone, on Tuesday .

She told the crowd of 100 people that she blamed “policy failures” and “mismanagement of the nation’s finances” by the government for the crisis.

“The debt crisis is dragging us down and making the process of recovery longer, slower and more difficult,” she said.

She pledged that the Tories would:

Scrap income tax on savings for basic rate taxpayers

Raise pensioners’ personal allowance by £2,000 to £11,490

Defer payment of Vat for small firms by six months

Cut National Insurance

Give tax breaks for new jobs

Freeze council tax for two years.

Scrap stamp duty on homes below £250,000

Fund 100,000 apprenticeships and help young people not in education, employment or training.

The forum was chaired by Helen Grant, prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone and the Weald.

Mrs Grant proposed setting up a business club as a link between local firms and the shadow cabinet.

“We are in opposition so in reality we are limited, but what I can do locally is come up with measures that might help,” she said.

Simon Hume-Kendall, the owner of Bewl Water, used the forum to criticise banks for their part in the crisis.

“When you put your money in a bank, you have a certain understanding about what happens to it, and I think we’ve been betrayed as to that understanding,” he said.