6. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the benefit cap in encouraging people back to work. (900438)

It is my strong belief that there is a connection between what is happening with the benefit cap and getting people into work. The findings of polls we conducted show that of those notified or aware that they would be affected by the cap, three in 10 then took action to find work. To date, Jobcentre Plus has helped some 16,500 potentially capped claimants back into work.

Some of the few families in my constituency affected by the benefit cap have particular issues in accessing employment. Does my right hon. Friend feel that the Work programme has the specialist knowledge required to deal with some of the difficulties that this group sometimes encounter in accessing employment?

It does, which is the whole point of the Work programme—to get more individuals to involve themselves and to help such people find the right courses, the right application and then the right skilling. The Work programme is able to do that in a more intense way than Jobcentre Plus is, so it should provide enormous help. The reality is that the benefit cap is enormously popular, which may account for why the welfare party opposite has come and gone on this issue from the beginning. First, Labour Members say they are opposed to it; then they say they are for it: we have no idea what they will do about it.

A new report by the New Policy Institute and Trust for London shows that 57% of working-age adults and children living in poverty in London are in households that work. That work is almost inevitably low paid and increasingly part time. Will the Secretary of State drop this mantra of making work pay and begin perhaps to discuss with his colleagues the possibility of encouraging a living wage?

I am always very willing to discuss issues relating to the living wage with the hon. Lady or with anyone else. However, I hope that when the hon. Lady talks to her constituents she is honest enough to tell them that the reason they find themselves in so much difficulty is that the last Government made such a mess of the economy, and caused so many people to collapse into low incomes and very poor jobs. It was the Labour party that caused that. We are changing it, and restoring the previous position.

The European Commission said this morning that more than 600,000 EU migrants live in this country without working. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we could cap the benefits paid to those individuals by introducing a more stringent residence requirement, and by insisting that they have a longer social security contribution record?

I have not read the report in any detail, but I do know that the 600,000 figure does not necessarily refer to people of working age who could be working. There is a big question mark over the number of people to whom it relates. I do not want to find myself in the middle of a debate between some of the media and the European Union, so let me simply say that our own assessment—our habitual residency test—currently prevents people who could be working and not on benefits from claiming those benefits. It is the Commission that is trying to get us to change that, and I am utterly refusing to do so.

The unemployment rate in my constituency is nearly 9%. One mother whose benefits have been capped has little opportunity of getting a job, especially as she has several small children to look after. She is putting feeding and clothing them and paying bills ahead of paying her rent, so her landlord, Miguel Contreres, is receiving just £30 a week. Can the Secretary of State provide a fair alternative to the landlord’s throwing that mother and her children out on to the street?

Can we please return to reality? [Interruption.] I love the fact that my new shadow, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—whom I welcome to her position—was out over the weekend saying “We are going to get really tough on benefits”, and at the first opportunity Labour Members are carping about the cap and the spare room subsidy. The truth is that the cap applies to people with average earnings. May I ask the hon. Gentleman what he might like to say to those who are trying and working hard, and who wonder why people on benefits are earning more than they are?