IDS calls for Treasury to be scrapped

The former Cabinet minister said that the Treasury dominated Government decision-making but was characterised by a “lack of vision” and a “short-term” obsession with cuts.

Mr Duncan Smith - who walked out in March in a row with the Chancellor over benefit cuts - complained that other ministers have to “fight at all stages” with the Treasury over policy.

He said he gave a “sigh of relief” when he left government because he would “never have to deal with those people again”.

His comments, reported on political website Politico, appear to contradict Mr Osborne’s oft-repeated claim to be following a “long-term economic plan”.

“The worst thing we have in Britain is the Treasury,” said Mr Duncan Smith. “I think it has to be broken up, I have reached that conclusion,”

The former minister reportedly complained: “The culture of the Treasury is almost unique in the Western world that a country’s government is so dominated by one organisation.”