Benefit cuts may infringe the human rights of claimants and the UK Government's approach to the topic is a joke, Scotland's leading expert has claimed.

Alan Miller, chairman of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, made the comments discussing the so-called bedroom tax during a debate on welfare reform.

Speaking at The Gathering, the annual charities conference in Glasgow, Mr Miller claimed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had not addressed the question of human rights when framing the policy. "They asked, 'Is there an impact on human rights?' and ticked the box marked 'No'," he said. "That is not a proper impact assessment. It is a joke, or would be if the consequences were not so serious."

The change means people in social housing who have rooms they are deemed not to need will lose a proportion of housing benefit, so they receive less than the cost of their rent. Mr Miller said if people were forced into arrears and evicted as a result, it was likely their right to a family life and home could be infringed. "The Government should have taken that into account," he said. He added that the UK authorities had failed to put into place internationally agreed standards on social and economic rights, citing Germany and Latvia where such a framework is constitutionally guaranteed.

German-based asylum seekers have forced the Government to review the payments they are expected to survive on by asserting a right to human dignity, while in Latvia pensioners used their laws to prove their Government had brought in austerity measures which disproportionately affected older people, forcing leaders to review its policy across the board.

"This internationally agreed framework hasn't been brought into force in the UK," Mr Miller said. "Scotland's next step – regardless of the outcome of next year's referendum – has to be to give more status to these economic and social rights.

"If we had them the UK Government would have to look across its budgets, not just zero in on welfare reform. That is what is missing. Unfortunately at Westminster the rhetoric is all about going back from human rights."

However some panel members at the event, hosted by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, took a different view.

Morag Gillespie, a poverty researcher from Glasgow Caledonian University, said it should not fall to those on low incomes to bring about change through the courts: "These are not welfare reforms, they are social security cuts," she argued. "One of the mainstream political parties needs to realise what we need is a social security system, not an American-style welfare system reliant on people taking human rights cases to get decent support. Will people have the resilience to go through claims and challenges to bring human rights cases and force a better system?" she asked.

Conservative Edinburgh City Councillor Ian McGill defended the changes, saying they were a response to the complexity of the current system and to "a feeling that benefits had extended from providing what folk needed to providing something more The changes will empower people on benefits to have many more choices."

The DWP didn't comment by the time of going to press.