Premiership of Gordon Brown into further talks over the issue. Finally, after a Commons Home Affairs Committee meeting between campaigners, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office on 19 May, Brown announced to the House of Commons on 20 May that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith would make a statement on the issue the following day. Smith subsequently announced that all Gurkha veterans who had served four years or more in the British Army before 1997 would be allowed to settle in Britain. In the days following the release and high-profile return to Libya of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in August 2009, speculation
Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerbie Railway CR proposed to build a line from Lochmaben to Dinwoodie, on the West Coast Main Line several miles to the north of Lockerbie, to make a more direct connection from Dumfries to the north; this would have avoided the reversal at Lockerbie, but the scheme was not proceeded with. In the years leading to 1876 passengers from Stranraer to London by the evening boat train went via Annan on the G&SWR to Carlisle, joining an LNWR train there. The arrival of the Midland Railway at Carlisle on completion of the Settle and Carlisle Line, and the alliance between the MR