The UN expert on extreme poverty has hit back at the new work and pensions secretary, Amber Rudd, after she complained that the tone of his report into the consequences of austerity in the UK was “highly inappropriate”.

Philip Alston urged Rudd to instead follow some of his recommendations to make the welfare system “more humane” rather than dismissing the powerful language in his report examining the impact of cuts and welfare reforms, including universal credit, as “extraordinarily political”, as she did in the Commons on Monday.

Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told the Guardian: “I think that dismissing a report that is full of statistics and first-hand testimony on the grounds that the minister didn’t appreciate the tone of the report rather misses the point. I remain hopeful that Amber Rudd might actually take some of the steps needed to address the worst aspects of the existing approach.”

After a two-week fact-finding trip across the UK, Alston concluded on Friday that the government had inflicted “great misery” on its people with “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies driven by a political desire to undertake social re-engineering rather than economic necessity. “Poverty is a political choice,” he said.

The 24-page report was roundly dismissed by Conservatives. A government spokesperson said it “completely disagreed” with Alston’s findings, while the junior Brexit minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, told the BBC: “I don’t know who this UN man is, I don’t know where he’s been.”

Mel Stride, a Treasury minister, said he was “rather disappointed” with the picture Alston had painted of Britain, while Rudd attacked “the extraordinary political nature of his language”, which “was wholly inappropriate and discredited a lot of what he was saying”.

People who spoke to Alston for his report have also spoken of their anger at the government’s reaction. Tracey Whitenstall, a woman with three children living on universal credit, met Alston at the Citizens Advice office in Newcastle. She said it was “absolutely appalling [that Rudd] is so ignorant”.

“They should get out of their cars,” she said. “They are turning a blind eye. I was very happy with his report. He took the time to speak to everybody. He didn’t ask leading questions. He was fact-finding and the facts speak for themselves. If they are going to ignore the facts, I don’t see any way out of poverty and the food banks.”

Mike Burgess, who runs the Phoenix Detached Youth Project in North Shields, where poverty led to riots in 1991, said of the government: “They are not in the real world. They are people who have no idea what is going on. Poverty is political. When you are suffering, you are going to get angry about it. What the UN envoy saw was anger. These people shield themselves from the anger and suffering.”

He said the government’s dismissal of Alston’s report was effectively a dismissal of the people who testified to him. “They are in denial of what they are doing to people and it is more convenient to shoot the messenger,” he said.

Zahra Alipour, 18, from Ealing, who met Alston last week to talk about her experience of poverty, said: “It’s a shame that Amber Rudd wants to deny our truth, although it is probably easier for her to dismiss the facts than to help fix them. The delusional approach she’s taking is absurd. Maybe she should try and be honest with herself and others too. I hope the government can now rectify and make a similar effort as Mr Alston to listen to how their policies are impacting on people.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) said that officials were studying the report closely and conceded that they had no dispute with the statistics Alston used. These included 14 million people in the UK living in poverty and local authorities having seen a 49% real-terms reduction in funding from 2011 to 2018.

But it responded with a barrage of other statistics, some of which were five years old. It said income inequality remained lower than in 2010 and that there were 637,000 fewer children growing up in workless households.

Alston’s report highlighted the disproportionate impact of austerity on children, the disabled and women. “[Rudd] seems to have a strong record in standing up for women, and that could certainly be brought to bear with great positive effect in this portfolio.”

He concluded: “There are a number of steps that could be taken simply through instructions provided by the minister to DWP that would make the system much more humane. I’m hoping that actions will speak louder than words.”

Alston will deliver a fuller version of his report to the UN human rights council in Geneva next year.