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  Finance Bill &#8212; Gift Aid eligibility of museum charges
  
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  <p>This division occurred during the Report Stage of the Finance Bill and concerns the eligibility for 'Gift Aid' tax concessions of admission charges for museums. Gift Aid is a procedure whereby a registered charity may reclaim the VAT on money which is given to it.</p>
  
  <p>Although not intended for it, museums that are charities began to use the Gift Aid regime to claim back VAT on their ordinary admission charges. The Treasury regarded this as an abuse and inserted a clause in the Finance Bill to make admission charges ineligible for Gift Aid unless they were for annual admissions, which in practice would be memberships.</p>
  
  <p>The Conservative front bench moved an amendment to reduce the minimum time of museum admissions eligible for Gift Aid from one year to three months. The division was on whether to accept this amendment: those voting Aye were voting to allow VAT to be reclaimed on all museum admissions of more than three months, while those voting No were voting to restrict it to museum admissions of more than one year.</p>
  
  
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