To ask the Minister for the Arts whether it is his intention to assist the Tate gallery, financially, to acquire Johann Zoffany's portrait of Lord Willoughby de Broke and his family at breakfast.

The Tate gallery receives an annual grant from my Office specifically for purchases for the collection. The sum allocated to the gallery in the current year for such purposes is just over £1·8 million.It is for the trustees of each institution, and not for Government, to decide how and when this grant is spent, and whether to apply to other sources of funds which may be available to them to help with this.