Face masks: Sadiq Khan overrides Johnson with transport extension

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that face masks will remain mandatory on all Transport for London (TfL) services after 19 July.

The move overrides Boris Johnson’s plans for stage four of the roadmap, which will remove the legal requirement to wear a face mask on public transport on Monday and replace it with a policy of “personal responsibility”.

Speaking at a Downing Street press briefing this week, the PM said: “We will stick to our plan to lift legal restrictions and to lift social distancing, but we expect and recommend that people wear a face covering in crowded and enclosed spaces where you come into contact with those you don’t normally meet, such as on public transport.”

But Khan has said he is “not prepared to stand by and put Londoners, and our city’s recovery, at risk” by not continuing to enforce mask-wearing.

Under his new rules, face masks will continue to be a “condition of carriage” on all TfL services – including the Tube, London Overground, buses and trams – unless passengers are exempt for medical reasons. Staff will have the right to throw passengers off the network if they are not compliant.

According to TfL, almost 212,000 people over the past year have been stopped by enforcement officers and required to put on a face mask before getting on a service.

Nearly 14,000 people have been prevented from boarding while 3,200 have been ejected.

Khan’s extension of mandatory face masks adds to a variation of rules across the country.

No mainline rail operators or private bus companies are currently planning to keep compulsory masks, meaning that anyone transferring from a commuter train service on to the Tube will have to put on a face covering mid-journey.

In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced that face masks will continue to be mandatory in public “for some time to come”. She said dispensing with the need for face masks would force vulnerable and previously shielding people back into isolation.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said he will not ‘”rule out” mandating face masks on public transport. He told the BBC he had not yet taken the decision to mandate masks on trams in Manchester and wanted to avoid adding to people’s confusion.

A recent poll by Ipsos MORI for The Economist shows that nearly 70 per cent want to see face masks made compulsory in shops and on public transport for a certain period after 19 July.

Long term, the poll found that 40 per cent of people want mask-wearing in shops and public transport to remain forever, while 41 per cent oppose them altogether.