Border government

The biggest cut was made to the department that funds local councils. After three years of cuts, it now faces a further 10% reduction. Hannah McNulty has been looking at the real cost of the cuts and who is paying for them.

Cumbria's Police and Crime Commissioner, Richard Rhodes, says that all areas will need to be considered when looking at spending cuts. He's already pledged to protect frontline services for two years. Police budgets are set to face a less than 6% cut.

A group of Public and Commercial Services Union protestors have been campaigning in Carlisle against government spending cuts:

Interesting politics; MoD and Home Office do relatively well, local government and Justice take a bigger hit.

I wonder what all those local councillors who made up the rank and file think of that.

Around 14 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union protest about cuts expected in theSpending Review outside Carlisle's Civic Centre.

The Chancellor has said that the council tax freeze is due to come to an end in April 2014.

But he added: "We will fund councils to freeze council tax for the next two years."

"That’s nearly £100 pounds off the average council tax bill for families."

The Chancellor has said that around half a million posts in the public sector have been cut. He said that a further 144,000 will go by 2015-16.

"Every job lost in the public sector has been offset by three new jobs in the private sector,2 he added.

The UK Government will today reveal the advice it has been given on what would happen if Scotland became independent from the rest of the UK.

According to Professors James Crawford and Alan Boyle, who set out their opinions in the paper, Scotland would be treated as a new country, having to renegotiate its relationship with world bodies.

The Scottish Government issued a paper last week, which assuming a Yes vote occurred in autumn 2014, could see negotiations between Scottish ministers and the UK Government, EU and international organisations concluded by March 2016.

Today's publication does not include specific advice from the European Commission on the implications of Scottish independence in the EU.

Read: Cameron and Salmond sign Scottish referendum deal

The Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore, has said he expects to meet with the First Minister in the next few weeks to reach an agreement over the terms of the Scottish Independence referendum by late October.

In a speech in Edinburgh he said the timing of the referendum should be no barrier to agreement. He said the Scottish Government has agreed that the Electoral Commission should oversee the referendum. He added there is cross party consensus around the preference for a single and decisive question.

Independent fuel retailers are urging drivers to lobby their MPs to demand a freeze on fuel tax.

They've teamed up with the pressure group "The Taxpayers' Alliance" to highlight just how much of what we pay at the pump goes straight to the Government.

Petrol station owners say high prices are hurting them just as much as their customers, as Ryan Dollard reports.