16/11/2017 London News

lives there were altered for ever.

We ask

join me now on BBC Two.

Good evening, I'm Asad Ahmad.

More now on the investigation

into the Grenfell Tower fire,

and the final death toll,

which the Metropolitan

Police has put at 71.

That includes a stillborn baby.

Separately a local charity says

there remains a long way to go

before trust between local people

and the authorities is restored.

Chris Rogers has followed

today's developments.

The police trying to rebuild the

trust, partly by trying to clear up

the confusion over the death toll?

Yes, in the days that

followed the tragedy

there was a lot of anger,

and there remains controversy

over the death toll,

with many saying it was much higher.

Today, the police tried

to explain the initial

confusion over the figures.

They revealed that

initially 400 people

were reported missing,

creating a huge task ahead of them.

The police say one person

however was reported

missing 46 different times.

They also say their investigation

was hampered by false reporting,

with eight cases of people

reporting their lost loved ones had

perished when they hadn't.

We know that lots of the people

who died were from different

cultural backgrounds.

In fact back in the '70s Grenfell

Tower was known as Morocco tower.

Nora Fakim has been talking

to one of the communities

affected by this tragedy.

This is the El-Wahabi family.

They lived on the 21st

floor of Grenfell Tower.

All five died in the

fire back in June.

Malika was best friends with mother

and wife Fouzia El-Wahabi.

She was very nice, very happy lady

and everybody is missing her,

everybody likes her.

As soon as I saw the fire, I said,

"There is Fouzia's building."

I was just crying, praying for her.

And when we asked the boys, they

told us they stayed in the room.

We know they died.

Many who died in the Grenfell fire,

like the El-Wahabis,

were of Moroccan descent.

Around 8,000 Moroccans live

here in North Kensington.

Grenfell Tower, commonly known

as the Morocco Tower in the '70s,

was home to at least 40

Moroccan families.

It's a community that was hit

incredibly hard by the tragedy.

Al Hasaniya is a charity that has

been helping vulnerable Moroccan

and Arabic-speaking women

in North Kensington

for three decades.

It's also been supporting those

affected by the Grenfell fire.

Bella has worked closely

with the families and says

the Moroccan community felt ignored

in the aftermath.

A lot of the Moroccan community

did feel marginalised.

Some of our Moroccan friends

and families went into that tower

and didn't come out in order

to save their neighbours,

and these people have been

here for generations.

So they're not

undocumented migrants.

It beggars belief that a lot

of people think that.

She says the authorities' response

to the tragedy has led

to a mistrust of today's figures

on the death toll.

A lot of people feel

that the figure of 71 isn't true.

They don't believe

it's a real figure.

Grassroot charities

like Al Hasaniya, who feel they have

stepped in where the authorities

failed, say five months on,

there needs to be more action

in order to help rebuild trust.

I really think the people that went

through this horrible tragedy

and are still being pushed

from pillar to post need whoever's

in charge to pull their finger out

and just get on with it,

just sort them out.

They don't deserve it,

no-one deserves it.

How would you feel if it was you?

The council says it's doing

all it can to affect those

affected by the tragedy,

but many still need convincing.

We've learned tonight that some

people have been reunited with their

lost possessions from five months

ago?

Yeah, indeed in the last half

an hour we've been hearing about

scenes of joy among survivors of the

Grenfell Tower tragedy, something I

never thought I'd be telling you,

because more than 200,000 personal

belongings have been retrieved from

the wreckage. 30,000 have been

retrieved, dusted down, clean,

catalogues and returned to

survivors. We've been hearing from

Michael Lockwood, from the council,

who was overseeing operations at the

site and he said a lot of survivors

wanted to return to the tower and

return to their homes and were able

to safely do that in the lower

levels of the tower. He said he'd

spent a lot of time with survivors

and they wanted to go back in and

see their homes and retrieve some of

their jewellery and photographs. 40

survivors were allowed to do that.

He said when they were told they

could go back in, they burst into

tears of joy and said they finally

feel they'd be listened to.

It's

been a very difficult few minutes,

thank you.

From today, there's a change in how

London's health care is run.

From now on hospitals and health

care trusts can use the land

they own to earn money to help

pay for care.

On top of that, Mayor Sadiq Khan

has been given a say

in how the money is spent.

But will you notice any

change in the service?

Here's our political

correspondent, Karl Mercer.

It was built to last.

They probably didn't expect it,

though, to last this long.

But 118 years after it was open,

patients and staff are still

coming to this site.

The service may be world-leading

at Moorfields, but the facilities

need a bit of updating.

They do have plans but the pace

of change in the NHS

can be pretty slow.

That may start to change from today.

A new deal signed between central

government, City Hall

and the capital's NHS.

It will see more decisions

about spending on health kept

in the capital and help places

like Moorfields develop.

To do that, we need to relocate,

we need to be in a more

purpose-built, modern facility,

and so we have a real

ambition to do that.

And this plan, this document,

this framework, this

memorandum of understanding,

will hopefully allow some of those

decisions to be taken at pace,

to allow us to make those

plans a reality.

It's hoped the plan could lead

to more of this sort of thing -

minor operations being done in new,

improved GP surgeries.

London will be able to keep

the money raised from selling

any unneeded NHS land,

and decide where to spend it.

First of all, the money

is kept within London.

Secondly, the wider London

NHS family, the Mayor,

the boroughs can decide how it's

spent, so crumbling GP

infrastructure, GP estate,

GP buildings can now be refurbished

with the money which previously went

back to the Treasury.

What the new deal doesn't bring,

though, is any more money,

at a time when NHS bosses say

they are more stretched than ever.

Even without extra cash, though,

it is a big step in handing more

power to the capital.

Clearly in a city the size

of London, with over 100

different organisations,

there are some decisions where it'll

be better if we can take those once

for London rather than taking them

100 different times in 100

different organisations,

and that's what this deal offers us.

A glimpse of the future, then.

London has some of

the power it wanted.

It will now have to deliver results.

The former Labour Cabinet Minister

and European Commissioner Peter

Mandelson says Brexit will seriously

threaten London's global status.

Lord Mandelson was speaking

at a conference today

about the challenge London faces.

Here's what he said.

People come to London

so that they can, through London,

access the whole of the European 500

million-strong single market.

Once we remove ourselves from that,

we become less relevant to those

international businesses

and investors, who will find other

places to locate within Europe.

But not everyone believes

the picture is so bleak.

Today, a group of London's tech

and digital businesses got together

to think of ways of linking up

with new markets around

the world and making the most

of post-Brexit opportunities.

Katharine Carpenter

went to meet them.

We've come to this tech conference

in East London to get a sense

of how this industry

is feeling about Brexit.

It can be a very hard thing

to measure, but luckily,

these two developers from London

have invented an artificial

intelligence sensor which can gauge

the mood of this room.

I think the room is

feeling kind of positive.

So, as you can see here,

updates in real time,

and currently it's actually

on the rise.

Perhaps that's because today was

partly about networking and seizing

opportunity beyond Europe.

As long as we try and engage

with other nations in a way

that is different to what it has

been in the past, in a more

competitive way and open way

and more collaboratively,

I think things will change and it

will work out for the best.

But there were universal worries

here, too, none of them lost

on the Mayor's new chief digital

officer, who's just a few

weeks into the job.

The first is accessed talent,

the second is access to markets,

and also that data laws don't

diverge too far from

what the European Union is proposing

so that we can have consistent

access and open access

to these markets.

One of those targeting

the tech skills gap,

a star who helped inspire

a generation of innovators.

There is a need for a real

concerted effort to look

at all of our education system

and decide, what are

we doing this for?

How are we preparing young people

for the world of tomorrow?

The tech sector's not alone

in trying to answer these big

questions, still feeling its way

to building a brighter future.

Katharine Carpenter,

BBC London News.

That's it for now from me,

but let's find out what

the weather's up to with Tomasz.

It wasn't a bad day today, Thomas?

No, it wasn't, it's going to be

nippy tonight, Jack frost will pay a

visit and temperatures are already

tumbling as we speak. By the early

hours of Friday morning they may be

as low as -4, in the coldest spots,

but in the city centre in London,

more like a couple of degrees above

freezing. About Friday there's not

an awful lot to say. It's going to

be a beautiful, crisp sunny day.

It's going to feel quite chilly.

That's 10 degrees will only be very,

very brief. Most of the day it will

be hovering around 6-7. Saturday

admittedly first half of the day is

not looking great, but the good news

is that later in the afternoon, just

before sunset, it will brighten up a

little bit. Here is the outlook.

Temperatures up to 13 by Monday.