The Chancellor has been accused of unprecedented secretiveness after refusing to answer dozens of parliamentary questions about his work.

Gordon Brown rejected questions on mundane matters such as the Treasury staff handbook being made public; whether he had visited any defence establishments; sums spent entertaining guests; numbers of staff working on the Olympics; and when his council of economic advisers last met.

He even refused to state whether he personally uses e-mail — and whether he had been asked by the Leader of the House to give clearer responses to parliamentary questions.

The Conservatives have made an official complaint to parliamentary authorities about the Chancellor’s secretiveness and will be publishing a dossier on questions that he has not answered, saying that it contrasts with the openness of his colleagues. They claim that it shows secretiveness to be Treasury policy.

Theresa May, Shadow Leader of the House, said: “Gordon Brown came to power promising to open up government, but instead has become the most secretive Chancellor in history. Why is it that Gordon Brown finds it so hard to reply to straight questions that other ministers like David Miliband answer directly? What has he got to hide?”

Sometimes Treasury ministers simply do not answer the question asked; sometimes they give a range of reasons for not answering, such as excessive cost or it not being government policy to answer. Other ministers, including the Prime Minister, have answered identical questions to those that Mr Brown refused to answer.

The accusations come after last week’s sharp attacks on Mr Brown for not consulting colleagues when he scrapped tax relief on pension funds.

Mr Brown, who in 1996 promised that a Labour Treasury would be “open rather than secretive”, has come under increasing attack for his closed style of operation. Last month his former Permanent Secretary, Lord Turnbull, said that there was an “absolute ruthless-ness with which Gordon has played the denial of information as an instrument of power”.

Derek Scott, Tony Blair’s former economic adviser, said recently that trying to get information out of the Treasury was “like drawing teeth”.

The Tory dossier shows that when Jack Straw, the Leader of the House, was asked how many meetings he had had with trade unionists last year he replied “six”. When the Chancellor was asked the same question, the reply was: “It is not the Government's practice to provide details.”

When Mr Blair was asked whether he personally used e-mail for official business, he replied “yes”. When Mr Brown was asked the same question, the Treasury declined to answer, stating only: “IT is used by ministerial offices in the course of their official duties.”

Mr Miliband, the Environment Secretary, listed all his official duties in January and February when asked, and Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, listed all the defence establishments that he and other departmental ministers had visited. However, Mr Brown refused to list his official visits, saying that “the information requested could be obtained only at disproportionate cost”.

In contrast to the Prime Minister detailing the visitors to his official residences, and the cost of entertaining his guests, the Chancellor refuses to disclose the information.

The Treasury insists that there is no policy to be secretive, but says that it is impossible to answer the 200-300 parliamentary questions a day that it receives about its operations.

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— How much do you spend on flights within the UK?

— How many Treasury staff work on the Olympics?

— What funds have you spent entertaining guests?

— Do you use e-mail?

— Who has visited No 11?

— How much money has the Treasury spent preparing for the euro?

— How quickly does your department respond to letters from the public?

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