UK Social Security System Is “Consciously Cruel” And “Ruining Lives”: “Human Rights Is in Crisis” Finds Amnesty UK
The evidence delivers damning conclusions on how the system processes, punishes, harms and dehumanises people and fails to meet international legal obligations. Successive UK governments have ignored the United Nations (UN) pleas to take urgent action to fix this.
For its report, ‘Social Insecurity’ ,Amnesty collaborated with over 700 benefit claimants and advisors to provide a platform for the people most gravely affected and show how politicians are playing with people’s lives and ignoring our most basic rights. In 2024 86% of low-income families on Universal Credit went without essentials such as heating, food and clothing.
With the backdrop of the 2025 Spring Statement and devastating disability benefit cuts, Amnesty’s report delivers a crushing blow of evidence on the UK’s social security system and political choices that have pushed people into poverty and centres real-life experiences throughout, demonstrating the depth of dehumanisation.
The social security system fails to meet the real needs of Disabled people
Amnesty highlights that: Households with a disabled adult or child face additional costs of over £975 per month, and in some cases, this rises to £1,122 per month when adjusted for inflation. Scope states that a £1,010 financial gap leaves many Disabled people vulnerable to debt, food insecurity and mental health challenges.
The financial hardship that follows means Disabled people are more likely to rely on food banks. Data from the Trussell Trust shows that nearly 7 in 10 (69%) of people referred to their food banks are disabled.
In 2017, after an inquiry, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) found that the UK’s social security reforms since 2010 led to ‘grave or systematic violations of disabled people’s rights. It concluded that there was “reliable evidence that the threshold of grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities has been crossed”.
In its 2024 follow-up report, the UNCRPD stated that “no significant progress has been made in the state party concerning the situation of persons with disabilities addressed in the inquiry proceedings… there are also signs of regression in the standards and principles of the Convention2.220
Rather than take progressive steps to address these concerns, the government has set out proposals in the 2025 Spring Statement to further regress the adequacy of social security.
The proposals set out goals to reduce government spending by £4.8 billion by 2029, reduce PIP awards to 800,000 claimants and reduce health-related universal credit for 3 million families by cutting the health element from £97 a week to £50 a week for new claimants and freezing it.
Systemic failures and lack of dignity and respect:
Reports of hostile attitudes and judgmental behaviour within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) illustrate systemic shortcomings. The current system fails to meet its obligations to treat claimants with humanity and compassion, contributing to distrust and trauma of vulnerable individuals.
Restricted access to Social Security and discriminatory practices
There are discriminatory conditions that restrict access for marginalised groups, inadequate transparency in eligibility criteria, and insufficient efforts to ensure effective, fair and transparent appeal processes.
Unjust and ill-informed decisions on sanctions and deductions
23% of the claimants who completed Amnesty research had experienced being sanctioned or having a deduction. Within this, 78% of people said it worsened their mental health. 55% told us they reduced the food they ate and 35% went without food. 47% of people stated that it worsened their physical health. 44% of people told us they were forced to borrow money to make ends meet.
Recommendations from the Amnesty report include:
- System overhaul: A landmark, independent Social Security Commission with statutory powers to overhaul the UK’s broken benefits system—rooted in dignity and human rights.
- Urgent protection from harm: The UK Government to urgently reverse harmful social security cuts, sanctions and caps including the two-child limit and ensure upcoming reforms of PIP, ESA and Universal Credit, meet international human rights standards and are shaped by those most affected.
- Legal protections: The UK Government to put in place legal frameworks protecting economic, social and cultural rights to ensure everyone’s basic human rights to food, housing, and dignity are protected in law and prevent failures in social security policy from causing wider harms.
Jen Clark, Economic and Social Rights Lead at Amnesty International UK, 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.
“… 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.”
She concludes: “We need a landmark, independent Social Security Commission with statutory powers to overhaul the UK’s broken benefits system. It must be rooted in dignity and human rights and designed by and for the people. This must protect us all – be that today or in the future where we all may need it.”
Amnesty’s report Social Insecurity is available from amnesty.org.uk.
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