Government website down for hundreds of users trying to access Universal Credit

The web portal for HM Revenue & Customs has also been knocked out for some (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

GOV.UK websites,including those for Universal Credit,are down,leaving claimants unable to access benefits information.

Issues with loading the UK government webpages started around 6am,according to Downdetector,which tracks internet outages.

When logging in to the Universal Credit portal,users were greeted by an error page saying: ‘Sorry,the service is unavailable. Try again later.’

Around six in 10 users encountering issues said they were struggling to log in,while four in 10 couldn’t access the website.

Outage reports began to swell this morning (Picture: Downdetector/Myles Goode)

‘The Universal Credit website is down,any idea when it’ll be back up again?’ one user on X posted just before 7am.

Around 145 people have also reported issues logging in to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC),where users can set up tax accounts or register for Self-Assessment.

As of 8am,the number of issues with GOV.UK websites reported on Downdetector have fallen to six.

The Department for Work and Pensions has been approached for comment.