Review our minute-by-minute coverage of the Commons session below.

George Osborne delivered the biggest cuts to public spending in decades – and now we want to know how it will affect you.

Highlights: 490,000 public sector jobs to be lost over the course of the next four years.

Welfare changes to save the country £7bn a year.

Police spending to fall by four per cent each year for the next four years.

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Our team’s commentary – live:

14.45: Some local reaction from the business community.
Martin Wassell, Midlands director of EEF, the manufacturers’, said: “There will be some relief for manufacturers that the cuts were not as bad as feared with some positive announcements in the protection of the science and education budgets and support for low carbon technologies. The private sector will have to play a much bigger role in the future of the economy. Today’s statement showed The Chancellor understands the areas on which to focus, we now need the detail of how we are going to get there. However, for companies the suspense is not yet over and they need clarity on the government’s strategy for growth and, in particular how it will work with the private sector to leverage investment. Industry has already started to increase its investment but this will only be sustained if the government sets out a clear framework for the longer-term. Further announcements in the next few weeks now assume a critical importance.”

James Watkins, executive director of Business Voice WM, said: “Business will need to be imaginative and innovative if it is to fight the supply chain problems that the spending cuts could herald. Cuts in social housing will be a matter of grave concern to the hard-pressed construction industry. The hope is that tax increment funding – allowing councils to keep business rates in return for commercial development – will help the sector. The cuts to the police budget will raise concerns as to how front line officers will be affected at a time when Business Voice WM has found that business crime costs the West Midlands £26,000 an hour. We will be watching this issue closely. The extension of the Midland Metro and the redevelopment of New Street Station will help to relieve the logjam on our roads.”

John Rider, chairman of the Institute of Directors in the West Midlands, stressed the region needed jobs: “It was the only place in the country that over the last ten years had seen a net decline in private sector jobs, unemployment was well above the national average and there were 850,000 people defined as economically inactive. We are in favour of these public sector cutbacks but at the same time the Government needs to protect jobs where it can and provide an economic environment for job creation. Let’s hope the private sector can come up trumps and fill the gap. But it is a risk and I am concerned by the timing.”

13.55: Peter Rhodes writes: “George Osborne sat down and Alan Johnson stood up to respond. This, remember, is the old Labour warhorse who said when he was appointed Shadow Chancellor a few weeks ago that he knew little about economics.
“But what a blistering performance this was as he swept into a passionate, lyrical and utterly assured demolition of the spending review. Ed Miliband watched wide-eyed. And how many Labour MPs were wondering whether they had elected the right man? This afternoon, on top form in the Commons, Alan Johnson looked like the best leader Labour never had.”

13.37: “As Chancellor George Osborne rose to address the Commons this afternoon, with bad news for princes, policemen and politicians alike, he looked like a conjurer whose best trick has been given away by his assistant.” Peter Rhodes gives his analysis of the review: Coalition marriage faces first real test

13.33: That’s it – the Chancellor sits down as the Coalition backbenchers wave their order papers.

13.31: Schools budget to rise in real terms for four years.

13.29: Shaun Lintern – E&S Health Correspondent on Twitter: Chancellor says NHS spending will rise from £104bn this year to £114bn in the next four years – one of worst settlements since the 1980s.

13.27: £30bn to be spent on transport projects over the next four years.

13.26: The Chancellor says that money will be made available for an extension to the Midland Metro. We think that’s the planned extension in Birmingham.

13.25: University funding to be cut by  7.1 per cent a year.

13.24: As expected, major changes at BBC. Osborne: BBC to fund World Service, saving taxpayers £340m, licence fee to be frozen for six years. None of it will be going to Jonathan Ross, of course.

13.20: Some Twitter updates.

Andrew Lowry: Listening to George Osbourne make me and another 495,000 civil servants redundant! At least it’s a sunny day.

realityrose Karen from Wolverhampton: Blimey, some good news – social care funding to be increased by £2bn. #csr

13.15: Our Deputy Business Editor Simon Penfold says: The City’s taking the Budget in its stride. After a brief drop in the FTSE-100 when George Osborne started talking, it is building up again. Investors are finding little to surprise them here, and are happy that something seems to getting done to get the deficit under control.

Richard Mottram, of Wolverhampton stockbroker’s Redmayne Bentley, said: “Some companies are being affected – BAE is down about five per cent in the wake of the defence cuts, and some building firms will probably rise because of the plans to build another 150,000 social homes – but there are few surprises here. Much of this has already been leaked in advance and investors were already prepared.”

13.14: Total health spending each year will rise over and above inflation.

13.11: Universal benefits for pensioners to be retained, the Chancellor announces to big cheers from the Coalition benches. Increase in Cold Weather Payments to pensioners to be made permanent.

13.10: No further changes to child benefit as higher rate change will already save £2.5bn.

13.08: Osborne – Child element of the Child Tax Credit to be increased above indexation in 2011/12 and 2012/13.

13.07: Welfare changes to save the country £7bn a year.

13.05: New Universal Credit to replace benefits and tax credits to be introduced over the next two parliaments.

13.02: There will be changes to MPs pensions.

13.00: State pension age for men and women will reach 66 by 2020. This will save over £5bn a year..

12.57: An extra £900m will be made available to tackle tax fraud.

12.55: Ministry of Justice budget to be £7bn by 2014 – a cut of six per cent a year on average. The move is likely to see the closure of some courts.

12.54: Home Office will find savings of six per cent according to the Chancellor.

12.50: Osborne – Police spending to fall by four per cent each year for the next four years.

12.46: Osborne – 490,000 public sector jobs to be lost over the course of the next four years.

12.45: Osborne – Total Royal Household budget to fall 14 per cent by 2012/13.

12.42: Osborne – the public sector needs to change. We have found £6bn of Whitehall savings.

12.40: Osborne – We are all in this together and we must all share the burden.

12.36: The Chancellor is spending more time talking about the historical reasons for today’s statement – promises of no return to the brink of bankruptcy.

12.32: Osborne – the years of ever rising borrowing are over. We have the largest structural debt in Europe.

12.31: We’re off. George Osborne says ‘Today is the day Britain comes back from the brink’

12.26: Dan Wainwright is tweeting a lot about this – might be worth keeping an eye on his feed

12.25: MerseySaddler on Twitter: Labour have developed an incredible ability to forget the past 13 years, it’s just a shame it’s not that easy for the rest of us

12.19: David Schneider – celeb on Twitter: How marvelous. BBC2 has the Spending Review while BBC1 has Cash in the Attic. Presumably the only place it’s now safe.

12.17: Matt Taylor from Birmingham on Twitter: The real impact of the spending cuts: today I’ll be having a Philpotts s/wich, tomorrow Subway.

12.15: Electric atmosphere in the Commons chamber. This is one of the most anticipated statements for many years.

12.11: PMQs still taking place in the Commons. Less than 20 minutes to go now.

12.10: James Carpenter of Beacon radio on Twitter: My fingers are firmly crossed for all public service workers today…I used to be one

12.08: Not long to go until George Osborne announces plans for the biggest programme of cuts in the UK for decades.
E&S local government editor Dan Wainwright on Twitter: I’m watching the comprehensive spending review. Chief exec of Stafford Borough Council says “we have had plenty of warning about this”