To ask the Prime Minister whether he will consider adding to the Bill to enable the trustees of the National Gallery to lend their pictures a clause to empower the trustees to sell such pictures and drawings now stored at the National Gallery as may be declared to be only of slight interest and not usually exhibited, and to use the proceeds of sale for the purchase of other works of art of greater interest and suitable for permanent exhibition.

May I be allowed to make a small correction in the terms of this question, and after the words "National Gallery" add the words "and Tate Gallery."

The effect of the hon. Member's proposal might not be advantageous, and, in any event, it will not be possible to deal with it in the forthcoming Bill about loans of pictures overseas.