LONDON (Reuters) ? UK insurers yesterday welcomed a government decision to delay implementing a controversial new tax on outsourced insurance services, which they said would have been impossible to implement next month as planned.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown?s pre-budget report (PBR), released on Monday, said implementation had been delayed pending a review of the issue by the European Commission.

?The government will monitor the progress of the review in deciding when to make the necessary changes to UK law and will provide industry with sufficient notice in advance of implementation,? the PBR said.

The government had proposed the tax come into effect on January 1, but insurers said it would have been impossible to implement so soon.

Insurers have said the tax could increase their tax burden by more than ?200 million ($347 million) and force outsourcing jobs outside the European Union to India and elsewhere. The outsource tax would only apply to jobs going elsewhere in the EU, including within Britain.