The cruel benefit freeze that is slicing billions of pounds a year from struggling families could finally end next year.

Most working-age benefits have not risen a penny since 2015, meaning people are paid £3.9billion a year less than they would have been.

The freeze is finally scheduled to come to an end next year – putting an more than £1billion back in people’s pockets.

And today, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd confirmed she’ll be pushing for it not to be renewed in April 2020.

But the date is only the same finish line that was due anyway. The freeze won’t end this year, despite charities pleading for it to finish early.

And there’s a massive catch – Ms Rudd wasn’t actually promising it will end. She just hopes so.

First she will have to win a battle for cash with the Treasury, one she fired the starting gun on in a major speech today.

Speaking in a south London Jobcentre, she said: "The benefit freeze is scheduled to come to an end next year.

"I haven’t had any further conversations with the Chancellor so I’d better not say anything too definitive at this stage.

"But it would certainly be my view that it should come to an end at that stage."

Campbell Robb, Chief Executive of the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: "The benefits freeze continues to be the single biggest policy sweeping families into poverty.

"If the Government is serious about being on the side of low-income families they will take immediate action to end this freeze one year early."

Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine said: "Instead of putting the most vulnerable in society through another 12 months of misery, Rudd should end the benefits freeze immediately."

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