6. Welsh Conservatives debate: support for the armed forces

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:19 pm on 22 November 2017.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 4:19, 22 November 2017

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate this afternoon, and I welcome the Minister to his role. I think this is the first debate that he will have contributed in since taking that role. But it'd also be opportune to pay tribute to the former Minister, Carl Sargeant, who, I think, on two occasions in Government, held this particular portfolio responsibility. It was a responsibility that he had a lot of pride in and obviously achieved a lot of success as well. I can remember many debates that we brought forward over the years that Carl responded to. It is pleasing to see on a cross-party basis many of the points that were brought forward in that debate, such as better access to healthcare, improvements in housing and, importantly, genuine reporting back to the Assembly on the initiatives that the Welsh Government are taking forward to try and make the lot of our armed services that much better when they get discharged from the military. Because it is important to reflect that Wales, as a country, with about 5 per cent of the population of the United Kingdom, put forward about 10, 12 per cent of the armed services personnel historically and, in today’s much smaller armed forces footprint, we still have a far bigger percentage of Welsh service personnel in all aspects of the military. So, it is important that, as the Parliament of Wales, we do watch what the Government's doing, point out where the Government might be going wrong, laud them where they are making progress, and this report goes a long way in trying to offer a road map, with a series of recommendations to try and seek those improvements.