The Old Bailey originated as the sessions house of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City of London and of Middlesex. There are two sheriffs and I had the honour, with Chris Hayward of being the first two-term sheriffs since 1228 AD. As Lord Mayor, I returned to open the first of two sessions during my term. The next will happen in October.

Achieving carbon neutrality should go alongside steps to promote green spaces in the City as places for human well being as well as biodiversity. I hope you all saw the Pollinating London Together exhibition in the Ambulatory on your way in to the Guildhall or Common Council. If not, do take a look on your way home as enhancing biodiversity is also a policy area within our 5 year strategy. I am delighted to be a patron!

It was great to award The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) Certificate in Ethical Artificial Intelligence to our first student, Philip Chamberlain. Philip works in Saudi Arabia but flew to Dubai where we were attending COP 28 to receive the award in person. Rapid development of Al technology means that ethical considerations must be taken into account from the beginning of the design process. Over 1000 students and 125 businesses have signed up so far to understand the ethical and management issues in the deployment of AI. Easy to sign up for the course www.cisi.org.ai.