High Court Rejects Judicial Review Challenge To Tax Consultation

The High Court’s recent decision in R (Martin) v Chancellor of the Exchequer [2026] EWHC 1123 (Admin) contains useful guidance on judicial review in the tax sphere. The claim concerned the government’s decision to amend two reliefs from inheritance tax, namely agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) and, more specifically, the scope of the consultation preceding these tax reforms. The High Court refused permission for judicial review on the basis that there was no legitimate expectation of consultation, the claim was time-barred, and the claim was non-justiciable due to Parliamentary privilege. 

Key points 

• None of the government’s published materials on conducting consultations for tax reforms gave rise to a legitimate expectation. They were heavily qualified and were in the nature of political commitments. 
• Challenges to decisions indicated in government announcements must be brought promptly, often from the date of the relevant announcement if all necessary information relating to the relevant decision has been provided. 
• Matters closely connected with the budgetary process itself are likely to be non-justiciable. Parliamentary privilege and the separation of powers preclude judicial supervision of the pre-legislative processes which form part of Parliament’s exclusive preserve over taxation. 

Background

The claim concerned reforms to inheritance tax reliefs announced in the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024. Prior to the reforms, APR and BPR were available at up to 100% of the value of the relevant agricultural or business property, without a cap. It was announced that from April 2026, full relief would be capped, with a reduced rate of relief applying thereafter.

Alongside the announcement, HM Treasury indicated that a technical consultation would be conducted on the “detailed application of the allowance to lifetime transfers into trusts and charges on trust property”. That consultation, published in February 2025 (the Technical Consultation), focused on the operation of the reforms in relation to property settled into trusts. It did not invite views on the substance of the proposed reforms to APR and BPR.

The claimants, two farmers and an association representing affected farmers and businesses, challenged the Technical Consultation and its narrow scope, on the basis that the government made a promise to consult on reforms to tax legislation, including this reform, and had failed to do so. They relied in particular on three documents: a 2010 policy paper on tax policymaking, a 2011 Tax Consultation Framework, and a 2017 policy paper on the budget timetable and tax policy making process (the Policy Documents). These documents, they argued, collectively promised formal public consultation on significant tax reforms and created a legitimate expectation of consultation. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, and HMRC, as the defendants, resisted the claim as having no merit, and also raised threshold objections that the claim was not justiciable and time-barred. The Speaker of the House of Commons, an interested party, also argued that the claim was non-justiciable due to Parliamentary privilege. 

Notably, by the time of the rolled-up hearing the relevant Finance Bill implementing the changes to APR and BPR had completed its Parliamentary passage and was due to receive Royal Assent. 

High Court Decision

The Divisional Court (Whipple LJ, with whom Fordham J agreed) refused permission for judicial review on three main grounds. Their reasoning was as follows. 

1. Legitimate expectation

The court held that the claimants could not establish the existence of a legitimate expectation from the Policy Documents. The Policy Documents did not contain a “clear, unambiguous and unqualified” representation that the government would consult on these, or any, proposed tax policy changes. Nor was there any practice which could form the basis of an expectation. 

The Policy Documents were found to be heavily qualified. For example, the 2011 Consultation Framework explicitly contemplated that some decisions would not be consulted upon and included exceptions for matters such as changes to rates, allowances, and thresholds, as well as measures where consultation might risk the Exchequer, for example through forestalling. 

The court also emphasised that consultation commitments must be read in context. If a legally binding promise to consult were found in this context, it would risk fettering the government’s ability to manage public finances in the way it considered most appropriate at the time. The Policy Documents recognised that some decisions would already have been made before consultation and that consultation might focus only on implementation details. On that basis, the government had not acted inconsistently with its published approach by conducting the Technical Consultation, rather than a wider policy consultation. The Policy Documents preserve the government’s “wide discretion” in governing and managing public finances in line with public interest. The commitments to consult within the Policy Documents were characterised as “essentially political” rather than being enforceable as a matter of public law. 

Without a legal obligation to consult, none of the claimants’ other grounds (which were all closely connected with a breach of legitimate expectation and alleged failure to follow policy, lack of adequate consultation and unfairness) could succeed. 

2. The claim was time-barred

The claim was issued in May 2025. The court held that the claim was brought out of time, well beyond the three-month longstop period prescribed for judicial review, as time ran from the 30 October 2024, the date of the budget announcement. 

The court rejected the claimants’ argument that time ran from the publication of the Technical Consultation in February 2025 since it was unclear what the scope of the consultation would be before that date. The relevant decision, i.e. the decision not to conduct a full consultation, was announced in the budget and accompanying policy materials on 30 October 2024. Those materials made clear that the policy decision had been taken, and that the subsequent consultation would be limited in scope, focusing on property settled into trusts. The claimants knew all they needed to know on 30 October and, in circumstances where the budget process leading to a bill being laid before Parliament was already underway, time was of the essence. 

3. Justiciability and Parliamentary privilege 

The court also held that the claim was non-justiciable. It highlighted the distinction between (i) Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 which establishes the rule against interference in Parliamentary proceedings, and (ii) the broader concept of Parliamentary privilege which encompasses the separation of powers.

After reviewing the authorities, the court concluded that Parliamentary privilege can extend to acts by the executive before the laying of a bill before Parliament, depending on the facts of the case, the character of the act, and its proximity to the proceedings before Parliament.

In this case, the Budget announcement and its accompanying policy paper formed part of a Parliamentary process, namely Parliament’s exclusive function to raise public revenues. Parliamentary privilege therefore applied to that announcement, as well as to any decisions incidental to it, including the decision to have a limited Technical Consultation.

Furthermore, there was a close connection between the decision to consult and the subsequent steps in the budgetary process, all of which had been envisaged at the time the decision was made. The pre-legislative act in question was thus part and parcel of the budgetary process, which is within Parliament’s exclusive preserve. Given that the principle of Parliamentary privilege is grounded in the separation of constitutional powers, the court concluded that it could not interfere with such a decision. 

Separately, the court explained that even if the claim had been justiciable at the time of issue, the position changed once the Finance Bill was laid before Parliament. At that point, Article 9 of the Bill of Rights would operate to preclude judicial review of “proceedings in Parliament.” 

Comment

The decision makes clear that the government does not have an enforceable duty to consult in relation to proposed tax reforms. More generally, there is limited scope for relying on policy statements to support claims based on legitimate expectation. In particular, the court’s emphasis on qualifying language and context indicates that such documents are unlikely to be sufficient in the absence of clear and specific commitments, even if those policy documents have been widely accepted and relied on. The decision also highlights the potential hurdles in challenging tax and fiscal policy decisions in particular. The court appears to have adopted a broad view of what constitutes part of the protected legislative process in the context of tax and budgetary matters. This may narrow the scope for scrutinising tax-related policy decisions through the judicial review process.

The decision is likely to be of practical importance not only to those considering challenges to tax measures, but also those concerned with the broader application of public law principles, particularly legitimate expectation, in highly political or policy-driven contexts.