Museums and Galleries

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

My noble friend raises a very valid point and I can tell her that the answer is no. National museums are able to recover VAT paid on building alterations and repairs through Section 33A of the VAT Act 1994, which also allows free entry to museums.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

My Lords, is not the Minister slightly embarrassed? At a time of severe public expenditure cutbacks you would expect a Tory Government to be increasing charitable tax relief, not reducing it.

[Baroness Rawlings]

I am not embarrassed by the many productive points established by DCMS. The Government’s consultation on the detail of these policies and their implementation will be published in the summer. I shall give some examples from April 2012. The inheritance tax rate was reduced from 40 per cent to 36 per cent for estates where 10 per cent or more is left to charity. We are committed to an online filing system for charities to claim gift aid, which is planned for 2013. We are also working with the sector to develop a gift aid database for charities as well as implementing several other suggestions.