Farmers and business owners have instructed law firm Collyer Bristow to serve proceeding on the Chancellor of the Exchequer and HMRC for a Judicial Review of the government’s decision not to consult on the planned Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) changes; proceedings were served on 23 June 2025.
The APR/BPR changes due to come into effect in April 2026 seek to levy Inheritance Tax (IHT) on farms and other trading business assets worth more than £1m on an owner’s death. Because of the availability of 100% APR/BPR, IHT has not been charged on qualifying farms and businesses for the last 33 years.
The policy has caused widespread dismay amongst the farming community with a number of protests in London. In May a House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report recommended delaying the implementation of these changes to allow for proper consultation with stakeholders.
This Judicial Review Claim only concerns what the Claimants say was the government’s failure to comply with its consultation commitments: it does not seek to challenge the substance of the APR/BPR changes themselves – though they say a lawful consultation exercise could still inform the government’s plans. The Claimants agree with the government’s longstanding position that ‘effective consultation… is an integral feature of all policy making [and] …helps ensure that changes are well targeted and without unintended consequences, and that legislation is right first time’ and they say that the government risks bringing forward flawed legislation that would damage family-owned businesses and the UK economy by not meeting that standard here.
They point to analysis of the October 2024 Budget by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) which assigned a ‘high’ uncertainty rating to the policy costing of the proposed APR and BPR changes, and the underlying data has been described as incomplete, of variable quality, and disputed in parts, as evidence of a need to review the policy, adding
‘… this factual uncertainty increases the risk of enacting a policy based on insufficient information and that this could – and should – have been mitigated through a proper consultation process.”
The Claimants are therefore seeking the High Court’s permission to challenge the decision of the Chancellor, Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP, to launch only a technical consultation on one narrow aspect of the APR/BPR changes (relating to certain trusts) instead of conducting a wider consultation exercise in line with its stated policy on tax consultation set out in the “Tax Consultation Framework” of March 2011. In that policy document, the government committed itself to conducting consultation exercises on both the principles and the technical details of tax measures in advance of any major policy changes.
The Claimants say that the Chancellor’s decision failed to comply with her public law duties, including seeking contributions from affected taxpayers on the principles and practicalities of the government’s new policy objectives.
“The Claimants’ position is simply that the Government should be held to its public law obligations on matters of tax policy. This Claim does not seek to overturn the Government’s decision to amend APR or BPR but asks that affected individuals and groups can contribute to a proper consultation exercise to ensure the Government has the best possible evidence when developing its tax policy for UK farms and businesses.”
James Austen, Partner at Collyer Bristow, commented. Further updates will be provided in due course.
