Chief executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, Rob Johnston, says that the Chancellor's Spending Review has brought some good news and clarity to Cumbrian businesses.

Mr Johnston told in-Cumbria that although the review contained 'an interesting mixture of cutting', investment in the Northern Powerhouse and a Carlisle Enterprize Zone is good news.

Here is the business leader's full reaction to the Spending Review.

Enterprise Zones

"Clearly we welcome the announcement of an Enterprise Zone for Carlisle. This is great news for the city. 

"This will mean up to 100% business rate discounts over 5 years, simplified planning through Local Development Orders, Government support to ensure Superfast Broadband is rolled out throughout the Zone and enhanced capital allowances for large investments in plant & machinery. It's estimated that this could create up to 3,000 jobs."

Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund

"We're pleased to see creation of the £400m new Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, effectively replacing the previous North West Fund. This is will be a debt and equity fund, designed to help small businesses grow. We'll be working with small businesses to help them access and use it effectively."

Apprenticeships

"We asked for clarity and we now have the clarity we asked for. Clearly the Government expects larger businesses to pay their way.

"This appears to be reasonably good news for smaller businesses as the £15,000 allowance means that the 0.5% levy doesn't kick in until wage bill reaches £3m. So we understand that less than 2% of UK employers will pay the levy in practice.

We welcome a business body to oversee standards and hope that this will be genuinely reflective of the business community."

Local Government income and spend

"It will be interesting to see how this pans out in practice. On the face of it the Chancellor says that local authorities will be spending the same in cash terms by the end of this Parliament, but at the same time it is apparent that they are being given responsibility to spend it on a wider range of activities. We'll be able to comment further when we see the detail."

Transport

"It's good news to see capital spending being increased so dramatically. There's clearly a desperate need for a transport infrastructure that's fit for purpose. And we're particularly pleased to see the £13bn for transport in the north over this Parliament. But this is only an announcement on spending not actual delivery and we do need to see this coming to reality."

InnovateUK

"InnovateUK provides a range of valuable funding to businesses for innovation. It's good to see that this has not been slashed, as had been rumoured, but it does appear that there's a move from grants to loans so we need to see more of detail on repayments and costs to understand the impact."

Environmental levy

"We're pleased to see that energy intensive industries are being permanently excluded from the environmental levy - but is this really sufficient to save our steel industry? And potentially others?"

Small business rate relief

"The extension of this for another year is clearly great news for the 600,000 small businesses benefiting from this."

Cuts to BIS

"Cuts to BIS are a concern given that this is the only department focused on supporting development of the skills businesses need."