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Greater London Authority Bill

This amendment has nothing to do with the extensive overseas work performed every year by successive Lord Mayors of the City of London. It is widely recognised that the Lord Mayor’s opportunities to visit countries all over the world and to entertain rulers and others at the Guildhall, in very fine style, do enormous credit to London and to the whole United Kingdom. It is not long since the late Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said at an Easter banquet in the City: "““Last year I said that the Lord Mayor was one of the greatest roving Ambassadors for Britain. I have to begin this year by admitting you [the Lord Mayor] have more than fully kept up that tradition””." So, too, have his successors. The present Lord Mayor, John Stuttard, has been to Germany, Kuwait, Ghana, Qatar, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Russia, Portugal and southern China. Later in the year he will go to India, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Brazil, South Africa, northern China, Hong Kong and the Republic of Korea.