Martin v Chancellor of the Exchequer: High Court refuses judicial review of APR and BPR consultation

The Divisional Court has refused permission for judicial review in George Martin & Ors v The Chancellor of the Exchequer & Anor [2026] EWHC 1123 (Admin), dismissing a challenge to the scope of the government's consultation on inheritance tax reforms to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR). The judgement, handed down on 12 May 2026 by Lady Justice Whipple and Mr Justice Fordham, rests on three independently determinative grounds: absence of legitimate expectation, delay, and non-justiciability on grounds of Parliamentary privilege.

The Autumn Budget of October 2024 announced that APR and BPR — previously available at 100% without cap — would be restricted to 100% on the first £1 million of combined assets, reducing to 50% thereafter. Rather than consult on that policy decision, the government published a technical consultation in February 2025 confined to the application of the new allowance to lifetime transfers into trusts. The two claimant farmers and a newly formed unincorporated association argued this fell short of the broader consultation they said had been promised by three government documents: the June 2010 policy paper Tax Policy Making: A New Approach, the 2011 Tax Consultation Framework, and the 2017 policy paper on the Budget timetable.

Lady Justice Whipple held that none of those documents, read separately or together, contained a clear, unambiguous and unqualified promise to consult on the substantive merits of any proposed tax change. The 2011 Framework was found to be "heavily qualified" throughout: paragraph 3 commits the government to consult only "where possible" and "where it can"; paragraph 4 acknowledges that scope may be limited to what "is already decided"; and paragraphs 8 and 9 preserve broad discretion to depart from the framework entirely. The changes to APR and BPR were held to fall within paragraph 8's exception for "straightforward rates, allowances and threshold changes", and the forestalling risk identified by Treasury evidence provided a further independent basis for non-consultation. The court concluded that the commitments were "essentially political, made by politicians about the way those politicians intend to govern" — enforceable in the political arena, not in public law.

On timing, the court found that the grounds for challenge arose on 30 October 2024, not — as the claimants argued — when the technical consultation was published in February 2025. The October 2024 policy paper made clear both that the policy decision was already taken and that any consultation would be technical in scope. Industry correspondence from November 2024 to January 2025 pressing for fuller consultation was treated as objective evidence that this was universally understood at the time. The claim, filed in May 2025, was accordingly long out of time.

The judgement's most significant contribution may be on Parliamentary privilege. Following Adiatu, Wheeler, UNISON, Police Superintendents and A and Others, the court confirmed that privilege extends beyond proceedings formally initiated in Parliament to encompass earlier executive acts that form part of the budgetary process — Parliament's exclusive domain for raising public revenue. Any declaration of unlawfulness, however carefully framed, would cast a legal shadow over the Finance Bill and thereby interfere with Parliamentary proceedings. Once the Finance (No 2) Bill was laid before Parliament on 1 December 2025, Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 provided an additional, absolute bar. The court expressly declined to follow the claimants' submission that Chaytor required a narrower reading of privilege in this context, noting that Adiatu and its progeny were directly analogous and correctly decided.

The Third Claimant, an unincorporated association formed the day the pre-action letter was sent, was found to have standing given that its ordinary and founding members were directly affected by the reforms. That aspect of the judgement is uncontroversial.

Lady Justice Whipple confirmed the judgement may be cited in future proceedings on all three principal issues.