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[email protected] Email the editor with your stories, pictures and opinions. Comment General secretary John Hannett Usdaw faces another battle to stop the Government’s plans to allow local councils to deregulate Sunday trading, but rest assured we won’t shy away from this fight. Our members oppose it, many retailers oppose it and so do many shoppers, so we will be doing all we can to make 26 the sensible, common-sense case to retain the current restrictions as set out in the 1994 Sunday Trading Act. We now know the Tory chancellor expects low paid workers to bear the brunt of his austerity measures after he announced a four-year freeze on in-work benefits for millions of people in his emergency July Budget. Chancellor George Osborne also announced: n Tax credits and Universal Credit to be restricted to two children, affecting those born after April 2017. n Income threshold for tax credits to be reduced from £6,420 to £3,850 n Working-age benefits to be frozen for four years - including tax credits and local housing allowance, (although maternity pay and disability benefits will be 22 exempted). In a major departure for the Conservative Party (who opposed the introduction of Labour’s National Minimum Wage), the Budget also included the introduction of a new national living wage for all workers aged over 25, starting at £7.20 an hour from April 2016 and set to reach £9 by 2020.