Sadiq Khan: Masks to remain on London transport despite end of Plan B

Tube passengers can be fined for not wearing a face covering on the London Underground network - but that will no longer be the case from next Thursday

Passengers must continue to wear masks on London's buses, trains and trams, mayor Sadiq Khan has said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the end of Plan B pandemic restrictions, including scrapping the legal requirement for mask-wearing on public transport, in shops and schools.

But Mr Khan says passengers must continue to don a face covering as a condition of carriage, due to the continuing threat of Omicron.

Some 30% of Londoners are unvaccinated.

People have been told to work from home unless travel is essential

The restrictions introduced in December also encouraged working from home and mandated Covid passes for some major events.

After examining the latest data, the Mr Johnson told the Commons that the restrictions would end on 26 January.

• How are Covid rules changing next week?

• What are the new working from home rules?

• Face mask rules and Covid passes to end in England

But Mr Khan said he wanted Londoners to continue to mask up, as "sadly this is not the end of our fight against the virus".

He said: "If we have learnt anything from this pandemic, it is that we must not get complacent and undo all our hard work and sacrifices.

"That's why face coverings will remain a condition of carriage on TfL services.

"I'm asking everyone in our capital to do the right thing and continue to wear a face covering when travelling on TfL services to keep us all protected and to prevent further restrictions from being necessary later down the line."

Tom Edwards, BBC London transport and environment correspondent

Here we go again as masks will no longer be compulsory on public transport.

And again we have a difference of opinion between the mayor and government.

Mask-wearing will only be a condition of carriage on TfL services so people can only be asked to leave or prevented from boarding.

Not only does that mean different transport modes have different rules - sometimes using the same platforms - which is very confusing - it also makes ensuring compliance much harder.

When mask-wearing is a condition of carriage 78% of passengers comply - when it's legally enforceable it's 86%.

Privately, many transport bosses think the mish-mash of rules does nothing for passenger confidence.

A total of 19,450 people were in hospital in the UK with Covid-19 as of 17 January, government figures show.

This is down 2% week-on-week, although the total has risen slightly in the past two days.

A further 94,432 lab-confirmed Covid cases have been recorded in the UK as of 09:00 GMT on Tuesday, while a further 438 people were reported to have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid, bringing the total by that measure to 152,513.

The Plan B measures were introduced to combat the wave of cases driven by the Omicron variant, with the aim of buying time to offer more booster jabs.

Follow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail]