David Manknell KC and Rajkiran Arhestey were instructed by the Office of Speaker’s Counsel in this claim for judicial review, in which judgment was handed down on 12 May 2026. The claim sought to challenge the Government’s consultation process which had led to the well-publicised reforms to inheritance tax relief which particularly affected farmers. The claim raised important issues of constitutional law in respect of the relationship between the Courts and Parliament. The Defendants were the Chancellor of the Exchequer and HMRC, and the Speaker was an Interested Party, representing the interests of the House of Commons.
In the 2024 Autumn Budget the Chancellor had announced changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief. The Government carried out a consultation in early 2025 and then introduced the reforms in the Finance Bill which was still proceeding through Parliament at the time of the hearing, and became the Finance Act shortly afterwards. The Claimants (two farmers, and a farmers’ organisation) challenged the consultation process but not the tax reforms themselves, on grounds of breach of legitimate expectation.
The Speaker’s position was that the claim was not justiciable because it trespassed on the principle of the separation of powers, seeking to interfere with Parliament’s freedom to legislate and with proceedings in Parliament. The Court ordered a rolled-up hearing before a Divisional Court comprising Whipple LJ and Fordham J. They refused permission on three grounds, including non-justiciability (see paragraphs 102-110).
The Court agreed with the Speaker’s submissions, setting out three key principles at §105:
- Parliamentary privilege goes wider than merely protecting proceedings once they are initiated in Parliament. It encompasses the comity between Parliament and the courts, based on mutual respect and the separation of constitutional powers.
- Parliamentary privilege can extend to acts by the executive which are earlier in time than the laying of a bill before Parliament. Whether it does, or not, depends in any given case on the facts, on the character of the act in question and on its proximity to the proceedings before Parliament.
- Where Parliamentary privilege does extend to the earlier acts of the executive, it is not possible to circumvent that privilege by claiming relief in the form of a mandatory order or a declaration limited to those earlier acts. Parliament would, by convention, take heed of any such order which would constitute an interference with Parliamentary processes, by casting a shadow over or implying some taint in the product of Parliament’s consideration.
The Court accepted the Speaker’s submissions that the consultation formed part of a Parliamentary process which preceded, but culminated in, the introduction of legislation into Parliament (see §106). The decision as to the scope of the consultation was therefore protected by Parliamentary privilege (see §109) and was not justiciable. Even if the consultation was not subject to Parliamentary privilege when it was made, once the Finance Bill was laid before Parliament then the consultation did become subject to privilege. The Court accepted that it could not adjudicate on the adequacy of the pre-legislative stage at the same time as Parliament was considering the Bill because, if any defects were found by the court, or a remedy granted, that would ‘cast a shadow’ over the Bill (see §110).
The judgment is available here.
This decision is part of a number of recent cases in which David and Kiran have been instructed which have delineated the boundaries of Parliamentary privilege, including Charity Commission for England and Wales v Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman [2026] EWHC 486 (Admin), R (ALR & Ors) v Chancellor of the Exchequer [2025] EWHC 1467 (Admin); [2026] 1 W.L.R. 10 and R (D1914 & Anor) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1853 (Admin).
