The Treasury is the 'worst thing in Britain' and should be broken up, says Iain Duncan Smith

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

Mr Duncan Smith said Ms Mourdant was talking about the British people not having a vote on Turkey-EU deal (Getty)

Iain Duncan Smith has branded the Treasury, run by George Osborne, as the “worst thing in Britain” and has called for it to be broken up.

Launching a scathing attack on the Chancellor's department Mr Duncan Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary who is campaigning for Brexit, said the Treasury dominated government decision-making and has a “short-term” obsession with cuts.

He also said it is run by 27-year-old civil servants with no collective memory and characterised by a “lack of vision” – contradicting Mr Osborne's oft-repeated claim to be following a “long-term economic plan”.

In a frank interview with Politico the former Tory leader, who dramatically resigned from his post at the DWP in March citing benefit cuts, said he gave a “sigh of relief” when he left government because he would “never have to deal with those people again”.

"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,"

At a round-table discussion with journalists and political figures, 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."

"The average age in the Treasury is 27. They spend no more than two years in any single part of the Treasury. They have no collective memory for any agreement or decision that had been taken before they arrived at their desks.

"Everything is up for grabs immediately someone new moves in and they dictate every single policy area across government. It is a fight at all stages."

Mr Duncan Smith said that the Treasury's power over Whitehall was established under Labour chancellor Gordon Brown, leaving it with "enormous" power over other departments.

The kind of decisions made in countries such as Germany and the US to support industry were "very difficult" in the UK because of the Treasury's dominance, he said. "It's not a department that is characterised by the concept of vision," he said. "This is a department that is characterised solely by a lack of vision."