To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the withdrawal of the cross-country train service between Brighton and the North via Reading in December 2008 complies in all aspects with statutory closure procedures. [HL639]

The decision to withdraw this service was made after analysing passenger and capacity demand. The withdrawal of this service has resulted in three sections of track in west London no longer being served by franchised passenger services.

The Department for Transport is not proposing to discontinue passenger services over these sections of track and is currently looking at demand to ascertain the frequency of train services over these sections of track. Therefore, initiation of the closure procedure under Section 24 was not appropriate.