Political update: November 2025

During the autumn party conference season, the CIOT/ATT external relations team – and others including CIOT President Nichola Ross Martin – attended the Lib Dem, Labour and Conservative conferences, building links with politicians and their advisers, and others involved in the tax policy debate.

We held successful debates on taxation of wealth and the wealthy at the latter two conferences. Both were full, with around 80 audience members in attendance, some standing. Many more have already watched the recordings. There is a report on the debates on page 32 and links to watch the recordings on page 50 of the Briefings section.

• At the Lib Dem conference, we discussed inheritance tax changes with Daisy Cooper MP, Treasury spokesperson, and Alistair Carmichael MP, chair of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and current government tax policy with former leader Sir Vince Cable.
• At the Labour conference, we were able to congratulate Torsten Bell MP and James Murray MP on their new ministerial responsibilities.
• At the Conservative conference, we met with Rebecca Paul MP, one of two Chartered Tax Advisers in the Commons, and heard Shadow Financial Secretary Gareth Davies praise the high quality of CIOT’s Budget analysis during a fringe meeting. We were also able to ask Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride MP about his speech the previous day and why he had targeted young people and high street businesses in particular for tax breaks.

Before the conference season, our Senior External Relations Manager Chris Young attended a series of meetings in Edinburgh organised by the Enterprise Forum, which provided a useful chance to discuss priorities for the Scottish tax system with some influential MSPs. These included Daniel Johnson, Labour’s economy spokesperson, Richard Lochhead, the Scottish Government’s Minister for Business and Employment (representing the SNP) and Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Conservatives.