OXFORD workers are this morning protesting against 'cruel' benefits sanctions outside the city's Job Centre.

The city demonstration is part of a national morning of action organised by the UK's biggest union Unite calling on government to reverse the sanctions.

In Oxford protestors plan to stand outside the entrance to the Worcester Street job centre from 10am to midday.

In a statement Unite said it wanted to 'highlight the shocking impact the government’s benefit sanctions are having on individuals, driving people further into poverty, misery and even death'.

Nationally, the union said 'punitive' sanctions had resulted in more than 318,000 people having welfare payments cut or stopped without warning in the past year, affecting thousands of children and dependant adults.

Sanctions are given for reasons such as missing or being late for appointments with the job centre, or being too sick to ‘actively seek work’.

Unite regional community co-ordinator Kelly Tomlinson said: "The government really needs to stop the cruel use of benefit sanctions which are destroying lives across the South East.

"The stress they are putting on people, and the effect on their children and wider families, is unacceptable. We should all be shocked.

"The government has shown no evidence that benefit sanctions are working. The opposite is true, when people are in survival mode, fighting to put food on their family’s table or stressing how they will pay their bills means their mental and physical heath suffers and finding work is so much harder.

"Rather than punishing the unemployed for not having a job the government should be helping people get jobs. People need a hand up – not a slap down.

"Unite Community members will be campaigning up and down the country tomorrow calling for an urgent end to sanctions."