Job advisers have been posted in a food bank as part of a trial that is set to be rolled out across the country, Iain Duncan Smith has announced.

Claimants who turn to charities for support when they cannot make ends meet can be given advice on finding work while picking up emergency food parcels, MPs were told.

The scheme is being trialled at a food bank in Manchester but could be introduced into other centres if it is successful, the Work and Pensions Secretary said.

"I am trialling at the moment a job adviser situating themselves in the food bank for the time that the food bank is open and we are already getting very strong feedback about that," he told the Work and Pensions Select Committee.

"If this works and if the other food banks are willing to encompass this and we think it works we think we would like to roll this out across the whole of the UK."

Mr Duncan Smith questioned Trussell Trust figures that showed a 398% increase in the number of people using their food banks between 2012-14 in Scotland.

While the figures were "genuinely put together" they were "not absolutely clear", he told the committee.

The Trussell Trust, which runs more than 400 food banks across the UK, said: "We welcome the Government's interest in exploring new ways that the DWP might help people at foodbanks who have hit crisis as a result of problems with welfare delivery, but we would also suggest that there first needs to be a dialogue between the DWP and The Trussell Trust network about the possible challenges and opportunities that hosting DWP advisers in foodbanks could afford.

"We need to look at the most helpful ways for local Jobcentres and foodbanks to work together.

"The Trussell Trust has had positive discussions with some MPs about whether piloting DWP advisers in their local foodbanks could be beneficial, but we have not yet had the opportunity for dialogue with Iain Duncan Smith or DWP advisers about the feasibility of rolling out this idea."

Mr Duncan Smith dismissed claims that benefit sanctions have pushed some claimants to suicide.

Labour's Emma Lewell-Buck told the Conservative Cabinet minister that people had "taken their own lives because they have been unfairly sanctioned".

"I don't accept your assertion somehow that these things are directly linked," Mr Duncan Smith said. "These are tragedies in their own right and they are often very complex as individual cases.

"Sanctions have been part of the benefit system for some time. Under the last Labour government they were accepted as part of the benefit system. I always accepted them. I always recognised there were issues occasionally and problems but I didn't go round accusing the then Labour government of running a system that somehow ended up in the way that you are making this allegation."

The Trussell Trust, which runs more than 400 foodbanks across the UK, said: "We welcome the Government's interest in exploring new ways that the DWP might help people at foodbanks who have hit crisis as a result of problems with welfare delivery, but we would also suggest that there first needs to be a dialogue between the DWP and The Trussell Trust network about the possible challenges and opportunities that hosting DWP advisers in foodbanks could afford.

"We need to look at the most helpful ways for local Jobcentres and foodbanks to work together.

"The Trussell Trust has had positive discussions with some MPs about whether piloting DWP advisers in their local foodbanks could be beneficial, but we have not yet had the opportunity for dialogue with Iain Duncan Smith or DWP advisers about the feasibility of rolling out this idea."