POLL tax riots-style "chaos" will result if the UK Government pushes on with the national Universal Credit roll out, Gordon Brown has warned.

The former prime minister and chancellor branded the welfare reforms a "harmful and hated" experiment that will risk public disorder.

READ MORE: Gordon MacIntyre Kemp: Gordon Brown has some cheek to write about punishing bankers

His comments came after charities warned the nationwide introduction of Universal Credit would trigger a surge in the number of people using food banks.

According to reports, millions of families could be left up to £200-a-month worse off when the new system is introduced in July.

In a speech at the University of Edinburgh, in memory of the late Motor Neurone Disease campaigner Gordon Aikman, Brown will say Universal Credit would remove £3 billion from the social security budget on top of cuts to child tax credits and benefit, which he helped introduce.

READ MORE: Gordon Brown wheeled out for latest 'doomsday' independence warning

He is expected to say: "For the first time that any of us can remember, the safety net is not now the welfare state but charity and the lifeline for families in need is not social security but food banks.

"In my own home town food bank demand has doubled in just a year because of Universal Credit and the benefit changes around it as family after family is pushed into poverty."

He will warn child poverty is rising "inexorably" and is expected to hit five million in 2022.

"A return to poll tax-style chaos in a summer of discontent lies ahead," he is expected to add.

"So I am calling today for the Government to abandon the 2019 national roll out of Universal Credit and end this harsh, harmful and hated experiment."

Along with Brown, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby are among a growing number of figures to call for the roll-out to be halted.

Labour had planned on pausing the roll-out if it gets into Government, but McDonnell said the party would now scrap it.

Touted as the most radical reform to welfare since the Second World War, Universal Credit rolls six means-tested benefits and tax credits into one payment.

The UK Governmennt claim it will encourage people to take up work by ensuring they will always be better off having a job.

However, critics have warned that in areas where it has already been introduced there has been an increase in food bank use.

The Trussell Trust, a charity that runs hundreds of food banks across the country, also said it received reports people had not been able to access the help they require under the new system.

There are widespread concerns that the number of people who have to reapply when it is rolled out next year will place the system under significant pressure.

The UK Government has announced it will give Citizens Advice £39 million to help people claim.

The poll tax riots in March 1990 erupted after a peaceful march by 70,000 protesters in London broke down into violent disorder.

There were 400 arrests and 113 people, including 45 police, were injured.

The march was in opposition to the Community Charge, dubbed the poll tax, which later became council tax.

The riots contributed to the the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, who resigned as prime minister in November 1990.