Benefit reform protests

Figures out today reveal that 40,000 people in Scotland, England and Wales will be affected by the new benefit cap.

ITV News reporter Sejal Karia has spoken to Candice O'Halloran who fears that the money she will lose through the benefits cap will see her living back on the streets.

Candice said she has been looking for a job for years but has failed to find work, despite being happy to take anything, "I will clean toilets, I'll work behind a bar, I don't care."

She said: "I don't know what they want me to do."

Read more: What is the benefit cap?

The Government says 40,000 households will be affected by the new benefits cap, which is being trialled from Monday.

ITV News Reporter Sejal Karia has spoken to one family fearing for their future:

• Read: IDS 'misrepresenting benefit cap statistics'

The Work and Pensions Secretary was today accused of misrepresenting government statistics in order to claim his cap on benefits was driving people to find work.

The Department for Work and Pensions(DWP) released figures yesterday showing the number of people expected to be hit by the cap had fallen from 56,000 to 40,000. Iain Duncan Smith hailed the figures, saying the cap had provided a "strong incentive" for people to look for jobs.

However, Jonathan Portes, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and a former chief economist at the DWP, said "there was no evidence at all" that the cap had affected people's behaviour.

Mr Portes told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "It may be that the benefit cap has indeed had the effect that Iain Duncan Smith would like it to have.

"That is perfectly possible but without doing the analysis - and it has not been done - you simply cannot say that and you shouldn't say it.

"This is, I am afraid, a consistent pattern of trying to draw out of the statistics things which they simply don't show."

Read more: What is the benefit cap?

The UK Uncut protest group said today's protests against the 'bedroom tax' and other benefit cuts had been successfully completed:

Mothers in Haringey protesting against changes to the benefit system told ITV London what affects the reforms will have.

Mothers in Haringey will demonstrate today against government benefit cuts, which they say will hit them the hardest.

The benefits cap is being trialed at four London boroughs from Monday, including Croydon, Enfield and Bromley.