§ Mr.Fauldsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in view of the fact that university museums as such do not receive any grants from central Government, he will now arrange for periodical grants to be made available to university museums at appropriate intervals in order to enable the precise sums of value added tax on agents' commissions which had been paid from time to time in connection with acquisitions for their collections to be offset at a later date; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr.HayhoeNo. The fact that certain universities are directly responsible for museums or art galleries has been 21W taken into account by the UGC in calculating the level of their recurrent grant which also broadly takes into account the incidence of indirect taxation such as VAT. It is for individual universities to decide what part of their total resources should be allocated to fund their museums.