georgeosborneChancellor George Osborne has set out the state of the economy in the Autumn Statement and spending plans for the next four years in the Spending Review, including earmarking £1bn to equip emergency services across the UK with 4G mobile services.

The government explained that providing better mobile connectivity will have huge benefits for fire, police and ambulance crews by ensuring that they can get more done when on the streets, helping to save money and time.

“The Spending Review invests nearly £1bn in the next generation of 4G communications network for the emergency services which will enable officers to access key police databases, take mobile fingerprints and electronic witness statements and stream live body worn video, all while on the move,” the Chancellor said.

“This critical national infrastructure will free up officers’ time, save the taxpayer around £1m a day when fully operational and connect all emergency services on the same broadband network for the first time.”

The 4G pledge came alongside the Chancellor's declaration that "now is not the time for further police cuts".

"Now is the time to back our police and give them the tools to do the job. I am today announcing there will be no cuts in the police budget at all," added Osborne. "There will be real terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we're going to protect the police. Five years ago, when I presented my first Spending Review, the country was on the brink of bankruptcy and our economy was in crisis."

Spending in police budgets is in fact set to rise by £900m by 2020, as total spending by the government will rise from £756bn this year to £821bn by 2019-20.

Commenting on the decision to not make further cuts Kevin Hurley, Surrey's police and crime commissioner, told the BBC it feels "almost like euphoria if your football team scored a goal". However he added that "all isn't well in the world" of policing, with earlier planned cuts coming into force.

Elsewhere, a planned £4.4bn in tax credit cuts was abandoned, with taper and threshold rates for working tax credits and child tax credits remaining the same.

In his response to the Autumn Statement, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said his party "fear for people's safety as more firefighters' jobs are lost and more fire stations close."

In the last parliament government cut 30% of its central funding to the fire and rescue service. As a result of that nearly 7,000 firefighters jobs went and more than 40 stations closed.

With the possibility of further cuts being announced, firefighters from Norfolk were in London today lobbying the county's MPs about likely cuts to their fire service. The county's fire service is still faced with an 11 per cent cut from its budget, with proposals to close Heacham and West Walton or Outwell retained stations; reduce 24 cover at some full time stations and cut the second crew at retained stations where there's more than one crew.

Ahead of the protest, Pete Greeves of the FBU told ITV news: "If we have any more cuts you will see retained stations going and you will see whole time stations going as well. If you have to wait 10 to 15 minutes for fire appliance to get to your house, your house will be gone and possibly anybody in that house will be gone as well."

Finally, Councils were given even more powers over decision making in their local areas including police and crime commissioners having the ability to raise local council taxes.