Shelter responds to Government plans to end benefits freeze in 2020

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “While the government may have finally called time on its benefits freeze, the proposed rise in support is so tiny it won’t make a dent in the damage already done.

“The truth is, housing benefit is now so out of step with the cost of private renting, it will take a lot more to free families on lower incomes from the shackles of poverty and homelessness that many have become trapped by.

”The government must go much further and increase housing benefit to cover the cheapest third of private rents, alongside a commitment to build genuinely affordable and secure social homes that would reduce our need for benefits in the first place.”