UK’s ‘cruel’ benefits system is ‘ruining lives’ and ‘violating human rights’, Amnesty report finds

Lives are being “ruined” by a “consciously cruel” social security system in the UK, a leading human rights charity has warned.

Amnesty International UK collaborated with more than 700 benefit claimants and advisors for its new report which has found “severe human rights violations” at the heart of the system.

In 2024, 86% of low-income families on universal credit went without essentials such as heating, food and clothing. That is millions of people in the UK going without some of their “most basic rights”.

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Jen Clark, economic and social rights lead at Amnesty International UK, said: “The social security system in the UK is broken. It’s violating human rights. It’s not enough to prevent poverty. In fact, it’s poverty by policy. We want to see it fixed to stop the harms of the social security system pushing people into desperation, homelessness and hunger.”

There are 16 million people in the UK living in families in poverty – almost a quarter of the UK population, according to the Social Metrics Commission. This includes 5.2 million children, 9.2 million working-age adults and 1.5 million pension-age adults.  

According to Amnesty, policies including social security freezes, caps, sanctions, the bedroom tax and the two-child limit on benefits have “deepened poverty and disproportionately harmed children, disabled individuals and low-income families”.

The charity also highlights “significant failures” in the availability of benefits which undermines people’s right to social security. It claims this is a result of a lack of information and advice about eligibility, and a failure to prevent stigma around the benefits system.

Clark said: “Lives are being ruined by a system that is consciously cruel – it erodes dignity by design. We are in a state of severe human rights violations. The social security system is impenetrable, inadequate, and for some completely inaccessible.

“There can be no tinkering of the system – it has gone too far, and it is too late. There must be full reform. It is broken from start to finish and intentionally sets people up to fail. No one would want political choices in this country to deliberately diminish dignity and perpetuate poverty.

“I’ve worked to highlight human rights violations for more than two decades and witnessed many awful situations. But never have I encountered such raw and widespread distress from people sharing their experiences in the UK.”

Amnesty International UK heard from individuals who have faced “discrimination” and “dehumanisation” through going through Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) processes.

One claimant described how she was asked to go in for an assessment, and her baby had died two days before. “And they were like: ‘Well if you need the money, you will come in. It’s not my fault your baby is dead,'” she claimed.

Another claimant, Naomi Lihou, who contributed to the Amnesty report and subsequently spoke to the Big Issue, said she felt “dehumanised” by the system.

Lihou said: “It’s like you’re just a number, and actually, it doesn’t matter if you are ill. Mentally, it’s a real struggle trying to deal with the system. I’ve got a history of mental health issues, and it definitely exacerbated it. I just feel like there’s a lack of compassion and a lack of common sense.”

“I really believe that the way it is at the moment, it could kill somebody,” she added.

The report has highlighted “hostile” attitudes and within the social security system, with its “failures” disproportionately impacting marginalised groups.

Of the 407 claimants who were asked to rate the extent to which they feel the system treats them with dignity and respect, 55% of claimants rated this at five or below out of 10. And 73% of 112 advisors said the DWP system does not maintain claimant dignity equally.

In one case, a mother reported she was told to leave her four children outside on the street as they were not allowed into the building. When the claimant stood her ground, the staff reportedly complained that they were not silent and still. 

Another claimant, Peter, said: “I would often be asked the same question three times to see if I’d change my answer. The process feels like you are on trial for murder, they act like they are trying to catch you out and that you are begging.”

Amnesty warns of “unjust and ill-informed decisions” on sanctions and deductions from people’s benefits. One advisor said his client lost his benefits and home because he did not attend his assessment after he “soiled himself on the train to the assessment centre and had to go home”.

Just under a quarter (23%) of claimants surveyed by Amnesty had experienced being sanctioned. Of these, 78% said it worsened their mental health, 55% reduced the food they ate and 35% went without food.

Nearly half (47%) said it worsened their physical health and 44% of people claimed they were forced to borrow money to make ends meet. 

“People are living in fear,” said Clark. “They’re living with financial precarity. Whatever comes around the corner – your fridge breaks, your cooker doesn’t work anymore – you have got enough to pay.

“But that’s not the fear that is debilitating for them. They are fearful that they’re going to get a phone call with their work coach and have 100% of their benefits taken away. It’s designed to be deliberately cruel, but it’s so opaque and difficult to navigate that people don’t understand what their entitlements. What we’ve got is a system that is cruel and punitive.”

Amnesty’s report follows a series of warnings from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which found “grave or systemic violations” of the rights of disabled people in the UK – including in the social security system.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is also investigating if the DWP has “broken the law” in its treatment of disabled benefits claimants. It has previously found that disabled people face “psychological distress”, poverty and “avoidable deaths” due to failures of the DWP.

Yet despite these findings, DWP has announced a series of reforms to the benefits system, which includes billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits.

A government spokesperson said: “We inherited a fundamentally broken welfare system which does not work for the people it is supposed to support. That’s why, as we secure Britain’s future through our plan for change, our reforms to health and disability benefits will ensure the welfare system is there to protect those who need it most.

“We are also unlocking opportunities for sick and disabled people through our £1bn employment support package, and we’ve also increased the living wage, boosted benefits, and extended the household support fund for another year to help low-incomes families with the cost of essentials, as well as protecting pensioners through our commitment to the triple lock.”

But the cuts, by the government’s own estimates, will plunge 250,000 people into poverty – including 50,000 children.

Clark said: “We need to put dignity and human rights back at the centre of social security. It is not a tool to coerce people into work. It exists to prevent poverty.”

Amnesty International UK is calling for a “landmark, independent social security commission with statutory powers to overhaul the UK’s broken benefits system”. It wants to see legal protections to ensure people’s basic human rights to food, housing and dignity.

“There’s an opportunity for the government to take action and listen to people in the country and decide to stop tinkering with this broken system and put in place a statutory commission that can overhaul everything, and get the social security system back on track for its primary purpose – to prevent deprivation for all of us,” Clark added.

The charity is also demanding that the government urgently reverse proposed cuts to disability benefits and eligibility changes, and ensure that the reforms meet international human rights standards and are shaped by people who are most affected.

And it is calling for an end to the two-child limit on benefits, the benefit cap, and the five-week wait for universal credit.

Clark said: “The UK government has overseen even more retrogressive measures to a social security system that is already not human rights compliant. They must stop what they’re doing and overhaul social security – lock, stock and barrel – and put protections in law to make sure that that choices can’t be made that take the level of social security further away from the real costs of living, or we’ll continue to see poverty rise.”

Read the full report and sign Amnesty International UK’s petition to make your voice heard.

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