Boris Johnson is slashing his official Beijing Olympics budget by more than £1 million after discovering a plan to fly 18 Gordon Ramsay chefs
to China.

It is part of a cost-cutting drive that could see the original £4.6 million Olympics bill cut by more than a quarter, the Standard has learned.

The Mayor has dropped plans by his predecessor Ken Livingstone to take the group of chefs to showcase British food, saying they were an unnecessary extravagance.

It would have cost London taxpayers £120,000 to fly them out to China and put them up in hotels for the duration of the Games. Mr Johnson is also
travelling economy class — although he is likely to get an upgrade from BA — and moving from the £400-a-night hotel booked for Mr Livingstone to a
more modest establishment.

The saving is just a fraction of the £1.2 million expected to be carved off the original £4.6 million budget for London House — a Beijing-based
venue aimed at promoting the capital ahead of the Olympics. The Mayor also plans to scale back on the cost of sending a delegation from City Hall.

He will be taking three senior advisers, two diplomats and five official observers with him from City Hall, although Transport for London and
the Met police will also have their own contingents.

All GLA staff have been sent a memo telling them that unless they can justify their presence as being essential, they will not leave London. A City Hall insider said: “Ken was going to pay out £120,000 for the Gordon Ramsay brand but the man himself was never coming.”

Mr Johnson has already dropped plans to send a red bus overland to Beijing after critics derided it as a gimmick and a waste of £500,000.

The GLA delegation is in addition to a substantial government contingent of five ministers and at least 50 public servants — with some paying £10,000 for just one week's stay. Gordon Brown, Olympics minister Tessa Jowell,
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe and trade minister Digby Jones will all travel to Beijing.

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