A Greenwich primary school nearly had a visit from Saudi royalty – but missed out because there "weren’t any robots for him to see" at the time.

It emerged during a full council meeting on Thursday night, March 21, that during his visit to London earlier this month, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia had expressed an interest in visiting a school in the borough due to it specialising in robotics.

Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman came on a three-day trip to London, a move that was met with protests in response to the country's use of corporal and capital punishment and human rights record.

Cllr Sarah Merrill asked the Labour council leader during the meeting: “When the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was so warmly welcomed by the government earlier this month, can [the leader] confirm that the crown prince asked to visit a primary school in our borough, and what the response to the crown prince was?”

Council leader Denise Hyland responded: “Well, luckily we had a school and actually took the local authority’s advice on this. I understand the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was interested in visiting the school because it specialises in robotics.

“And actually, there was no robotics on the day he wanted to visit, nor any other day he might have wanted to visit.”

The school was not referred to by name during the meeting.

Greenwich Council made headlines earlier in December over another potential guest to the borough when it made the decision to “bar Donald Trump” from the Royal Borough.

The Labour council passed a motion following President Trump’s retweeting of videos posted by far-right Britain First’s deputy leader Jayda Fransen to his millions of followers.