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 four miles (Lockerbie) and six miles (Dumfries) away. The populations in 1850 were Lochmaben: 3,100; Dumfries: 11,000; and Lockerbie (in 1851) 1,569. Local interests promoted an independent line between Lockerbie and Dumfries, and an Act authorising the Dumfries, Lochmaben and Lockerby Junction Railway received the Royal Assent on 14 June 1860; the authorised capital was £85,000 in £10 shares, with borrowing powers of £28,300. The promoters wished to have an independent passenger station in Dumfries, but the G&SWR opposed this and the House of Lords committee agreed, obliging the DL&LR to use the G&SWR station. The CR was happy to