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Prime Minister David Cameron has said welfare changes are "right and fair" and challenged Labour to support the government's benefit cap plan.
The £26,000-a-year cap is one of seven areas on which the Welfare Reform Bill has suffered defeats in the Lords.
The bill has now returned to the Commons as ministers say they are determined to get their plans through.
Labour say they support the benefit cap in principle - but want changes to the way it is implemented.
The party's position on the cap - equivalent to the average salary of a working household - came under attack at Prime Minister's Questions.
Mr Cameron repeatedly pressed Labour Leader Ed Miliband to say whether he would support the government, on what ministers say is a plan that has a lot of public support, accusing him of "complete silence" on the issue.
At the weekend, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne said Labour would not be supporting the cap as it stood - because of concerns that it would force many families out of their homes.
He said the party would instead push for a local cap on benefits - to vary across the country and reflect different housing benefit rates - rather than one £500-a-week/£26,000-a-year cap across England, Scotland and Wales.
The cap is just one of seven areas where peers voted against the government.
MPs are now debating whether to back amendments made by peers, or throw them out - re-introducing aspects of the proposed legislation rejected by peers.
The government says it intends to overturn the following measures agreed by the Lords:
- Excluding child benefit from the £26,000 cap on total benefits to households
- Not charging single parents to access child maintenance if they take reasonable steps to reach a settlement
- Exempting cancer patients from means-testing of employment support allowance
- Extending eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) prior to means-testing from one to two years
- Allowing young disabled people to continue claiming National Insurance contribution-based ESA
- Exempting social tenants with one spare room from "under-occupancy" penalties
David Cameron taunted the Labour front bench and called for a reaction on welfare reforms
The government suffered its latest defeat on Tuesday when a coalition of crossbench and Labour peers - supported by two Conservatives and seven Lib Dems - voted to limit a proposed reduction to the lower rate of the "disabled child element" of Child Tax Credits.
A crossbench amendment tabled by Baroness Meacher calling for the lower rate to be at least two-thirds of the value of the higher rate - which ministers want to raise to £77 a week - was passed by 16 votes.
The government says it wants to target support at the children with the highest care needs - and say there will be transitional protection so those already in receipt of the benefit will not lose money.
But SDLP MP Margaret Ritchie said at prime minister's questions it would hit working people facing severe financial difficulties - and could cost them over £1,300 a year.
Mr Byrne says Labour was determined to force the government to change the bill.
"Welfare to work needs jobs - and this bill doesn't create a single one," he said.
"Instead it cuts support for people trying to do the right thing, like mums trying to go back to work and families trying to save, and quite frankly it crosses a line of basic British decency."
Ministers say the public backs the principle of not paying any household more in benefits than the average weekly wage of working families.
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