§ Mr. Cormackasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will broaden the administrative tests applied for acceptance of works of art in lieu of estate duty under the Finance Act, 1956, and for exemption of works of art and other objects from estate duty under the Finance Act, 1930, respectively.
§ Mr. NottYes. The Government have decided that the existing tests do not take full account of the needs of local authority and university institutions. The standards applicable to their collections will therefore be used in future both for acceptance of works of art and for exemption from estate duty. A work of art offered in lie of estate duty will be accepted if the Treasury is satisfied that it would be a pre-eminent addition to a public collection, whether national, local authority or university.
Similarly, the less strigent test used to assess whether a work of art or other object should be granted exemption from estate duty will be: is it good enough to be displayed in a public collection?
60WThe Government's aim, by allowing a wider range of exemptions and amore frequent use of the National Land Fund, is to encourage museums and galleries to build up their collections, and particularly those in the regions. The changes will also help private owners to retain exempt objects or sell them to these collections. The great national collections will continue to be enriched by outstanding works of art under the 1956 procedure. But since this is intended for acquisitions outside the scope of their normal annual purchase grants voted by Parliament any national institution which is allocated a work of art costing less than 25 per cent, of its annual purchase grant will be required to reimburse the National Land Fund.
The Paymaster-General is consulting with the Standing Commission on Museum and Galleries on the procedures for determining the allocation of works of art accepted in lieu of estate duty between national and regional museums. He proposes to make a statement when these consultations have been completed.