DYFED-Powys police and crime commissioner Christopher Salmon has welcomed George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review, which included a commitment to protect police budgets in England and Wales.

The announcement was one of the surprise rabbits the Chancellor pulled from his hat with many police chiefs expecting to hear that their budgets were to be cut.

Mr Salmon, the Conservative candidate in the 2012 commissioner election, described the spending review as “encouraging news for policing” but warned that he planned to impose further savings on the force in Dyfed-Powys despite overseeing a predicted budget underspend this year in the region of £9million.

“Financial challenges remain but I'm determined to protect local policing,” said Mr Salmon

“I share the Government's commitment to keeping the public safe and I will continue to prioritise local policing in Dyfed-Powys.

“Over the past few years we've been able to increase the number of local officers while making significant savings.

“I want to ensure we can continue that work to make Dyfed-Powys even safer. With the right decisions we can make a big difference to the safety of our homes.

“I will continue with my plans. We still need to spend taxpayers money wisely.

“We still need to make savings. We still need to invest in IT. We still need the police to be more flexible.

“The biggest threat to our safety is that we can't pay our bills for police and defence in future.

“Like other parts of government we have to do our bit to make sure we don't leave massive debts to our children.”