Why does Kemi Badenoch want to break up the Treasury?

Conservative leadership elections aren’t usually associated with big policy ideas. But last week Kemi Badenoch put forward a proposal that could revolutionise the way the British state works. She suggested we should break up the most powerful government department, the Treasury. Others also think there’s a problem; Penny Mordaunt’s book Greater: Britain After The Storm suggests ‘decentralising’ and ‘localising’ Britain’s finance ministry. What’s behind the sudden interest in the fate of the goings-on in one building in Whitehall?

At the heart of the issue is the fact that Her Majesty’s Treasury is rather unusual, and very powerful. The Treasury is unusual because it combines three government functions that in many other countries – Australia, the United States, Germany, Japan – are separated out. It is at once a budgetary ministry, a finance ministry and an economic ministry. In business terms, it is as if a company combined the roles of its finance director, its banker, and its business development director into one mega-job.