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“We need to make people feel safe in public transport, mask wearing should be compulsory,” London mayor

“Making mask wearing compulsory again would make people feel safer and encourage them to use the Tube”, Mayor Khan says

London Mayor Sadiq Khan is lobbying the UK government to make mask-wearing on the Underground mandatory and required by law, which will make people feel safe travelling on public transportation.

 British Transport Police will then be able to enforce the law and impose fixed penalties on those who board trains mask-less.

“We are trying to lobby government to allow us to bring in a bye-law to it will be the law again, and we can issue fixed penalty notices and use the police service and BTP to enforce it”, Khan said when interviewed by BBC's Newscast.

“Making mask wearing compulsory again would make people feel safer and encourage them to use the Tube”, he added.

“We need people to be coming back to the West End. We want to encourage people to return to their offices, and they are not going to do so, if they don't feel public transport is safe”.

However the number of people wearing masks on public transport remains high in London with around 85% of Tube, bus and train commuters continuing to use them.

Mandatory masks for England was dropped 19 July, 'Freedom Day' though Khan has consistently opposed the move. He asked Transport for London, to enforce it as “a condition of carriage”, which would make workers able to ask non compliant passengers to leave the bus, train or Tube.

Despite the easing of restrictions, around two thirds of adults in the UK still plan to continue wearing masks, according to the latest opinion polls.