Item 6 on the agenda is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services—remembering our armed forces and delivering for our armed forces community. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services—Alun Davies. 

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This time of year serves as a poignant reminder of those who fought bravely in previous conflicts to preserve our freedoms and our way of life. Two thousand and eighteen is the year we commemorate the centenary of the end of the first world war. This war cost the lives of more than 700,000 British soldiers, including, of course, many from Wales. Key events are being held across the country to mark this significant milestone.

I am sure that many will have seen and heard about the Royal British Legion's 'Thank You' campaign to mark the final year of the first world war centenary. The campaign seeks to remember not only those who made the ultimate sacrifice but also those who shaped the world in which we live today. Silent silhouettes have been erected in many communities across Wales as a visible reminder of the conflict and the legacy that have shaped our country for generations, and, of course, those who did not return home.

This year, we have also celebrated the centenary of the formation of the Royal Air Force, with a number of events being held across the country. We can all be proud of the role played by that great Welshman David Lloyd George, who was the Prime Minister at the time of its formation. Through our own Cymru’n Cofio Wales Remembers programme, we will continue to mark significant first world war events. We must never forget the sacrifices made in that conflict. 

And I also recognise, Deputy Presiding Officer, the points that were made earlier by the Member for Clwyd West on the role of the fusiliers in the middle east and in other theatres. I recognise that sometimes we focus on the western front alone, but it is right and proper that we do recognise all of those who fought in that terrible conflict in whichever theatre they were involved.

We must also remember those who made sacrifices in conflicts that followed that war. During the world war two, the RAF played a significant part in turning the war in Europe—its most significant campaign being the battle of Britain. Approximately 70,000 RAF personnel lost their lives defending our country and our peoples. I am also sure that most of you will have seen the graphic pictures of Bluff Cove during the Falklands war in the early 1980s. British forces including, again, many from Wales, lost their lives or were severely injured during that conflict. We will never forget those who have paid the ultimate price and all those who survived, some with serious injuries, to protect the freedoms that we enjoy today. 

Earlier this year, the Welsh Government was proud to provide Conwy County Borough Council with £185,000 to support the national Armed Forces Day, which was held in Llandudno. It was a huge success, with in excess of 100,000 people attending the event. Events such as these give the people of Wales the opportunity to show their appreciation and gratitude to our serving and ex-service personnel.

In April, when I published my statement on support for the armed forces in Wales, I said that there had been a tremendous amount of progress made over the last few years in providing support for this community. Today, I would like to take some time to share that progress.

It is only right that we give back to those who have given so much to us and this is why the Welsh Government supports the armed forces community and will continue to do so in the future. We support Veterans' NHS Wales with nearly £700,000 annually to conduct research trials to help remedy mental health problems. The organisation is also working in partnership with Change Step, which delivers a peer mentoring programme, helping veterans access crucial health and other holistic support, including on substance misuse and advice on housing and employment.

At the armed forces expert group in September, we heard about the work of Change Step and the social return of investing in services to support those vulnerable in our communities, helping them to turn their lives around and keep them on track. I must also say that I am grateful to all those people who work with us on the armed forces expert group, and I would also like to thank the cross-party group in the National Assembly for the work that they do in supporting and sustaining the work for the armed forces community. 

I am pleased that the fast-track pathway for secondary and specialist care continues to thrive. Feedback from the Ministry of Defence is very positive. In the year 2017-18, the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee spent £77,000 to support the pathway.

We support a free swimming scheme for serving personnel and veterans, and in 2017-18, almost 9,000 swims were recorded. The scheme supports health and well-being amongst our armed forces community and enables people to come together in an environment that supports rehabilitation and well-being.

I am keen to support veterans through our substance misuse delivery plan. In 2016-17, 308 veterans received treatment to ensure their mental and physical well-being is being addressed.

We have recently published for consultation a cross-Government strategy on loneliness and isolation, with a final strategy to be published by next March. My intention is that this will also include work with and for veterans. Military charities will be consulted on the strategy, because I want to ensure that the armed forces community is fully considered. We will also work with the service family federations to determine what support can be offered to serving members and their families.

The Welsh Government recognises the particular challenges that face the children of service personnel. I am pleased that a bespoke fund of £250,000 has been directed towards the educational support of service children, and that 27 schools have been awarded funding in this financial year. Deputy Presiding Officer, last year we continued to support students thorough the armed forces bereavement scheme. This gives children who have lost parents in service a head start in life, giving back to those who have lost so much. 

Last year, the Welsh Government also provided £233,000 through the further and higher education commitment scheme to support service leavers to study and gain further and higher education qualifications. We will continue this commitment in 2019, enabling ex-serving personnel to change careers and gain employment. 

We are aware that some veterans struggle to secure housing. So, to complement our housing referral pathway, we have developed advice cards and leaflets for ex-serving personnel who are unfortunately sleeping rough. These include the contact details of the veterans gateway, which provides an important point of contact in accessing housing, as well as a wide range of other services that are available.

I was delighted to hear about the Tŷ Ryan project in Wrexham, and the good work that is being undertaken by the veterans self-build project. This supports veterans to acquire valuable construction skills and a place to live in one of the houses they themselves have helped to build. Having a home of your own is vital for one's well-being and in securing employment, and for so many practical reasons as well as our general well-being.

Where ex-serving personnel have entered the criminal justice system, they need to be supported and given every opportunity to rehabilitate. The SToMP or Supporting Transition of Military Personnel project ensures that those in custody receive specialist support both during their sentence and on release. Ex-serving personnel may have complex needs and projects such as this ensure that these needs are recognised and delivered upon. In the past year, the team has implemented their whole system pathway across the Welsh prison estate, where veterans are encouraged to improve their education and taught valuable life skills to help them adjust to civilian life.

Last year, the Welsh Local Government Association was successful in obtaining covenant funding to appoint armed forces liaison officers to deliver consistent support for veterans and their families across all local authorities in Wales. I have heard at first hand about the valuable work they are doing, such as the delivery of a construction insight day, which provided service leavers and veterans with the opportunities to meet employers in the construction and civil engineering sector.

The armed forces liaison officers have also implemented covenant guidelines across most local authorities in Wales, which has resulted in raising awareness and training for staff to recognise and address the needs of this community, including reviewing housing policies and support and advice on employment, substance misuse and education. Across north Wales local authorities, the armed forces liaison officers have developed a regional website that will contain information on opportunities for voluntary work, community events and support with accessing services. These initiatives will help this community with their health and well-being, but also support them through challenging times in their lives.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this funding was due to end in 2019, but I am very keen for the good work to continue. That is why today, I am announcing that the Welsh Government will support the role for a further two years from 2019 with a funding package of £500,000. This should enable services received by the ex-serving community to be embedded in mainstream support from local authorities in future years.

I am delighted to say that Wales has punched above its weight in securing covenant funds: £1.37 million was awarded to Welsh projects during 2017-18, providing an opportunity for us to build on the services we deliver for our armed forces community. Yesterday, I attended the UK ministerial covenant and veterans board, where all the countries of the United Kingdom agreed on a new veterans strategy. In Wales, we will deliver the new strategy once we have completed the current scoping exercise to identify gaps in service delivery. The findings of this will be available in the spring. 

Recognising that employment plays a pivotal role in a successful transition to civilian life, the Welsh Government has been working with key partners to develop an employment pathway. To complement the pathway, we are also working with Business in the Community to develop an employers’ toolkit. The toolkit is designed for employers and will help them recognise the skills and qualities ex-service personnel can offer prospective employers. These important documents will both inform and provide options for service leavers and veterans to gain meaningful employment. I would like to take the opportunity today to announce that I will launch the employment pathway in the next few days, and to confirm that we will be launching the employers’ toolkit before the Christmas recess. 

In the spring, this Government will also provide an annual report on our progress in delivering on our commitments for this community. I hope that this Government's actions have given Members confidence that we are supporting the ex-serving community. We have come a long way, but there is clearly more to do. I'm sure that by working collaboratively with our partners and other Governments in the United Kingdom, we will continue to make a difference for this community. I would like to end this statement by simply repeating the words of the Royal British Legion: thank you. 

Well, as you say, we must never forget the sacrifices made in both the great war 1914-18 and the conflicts that followed. You referred to the Falklands, and you mentioned Bluff Cove. Can I pay tribute, and will you join me in paying tribute to Dr Steven Hughes, who was the regimental medical officer with 2 Para during the Falklands? It was he who waded out into the cold waters in Bluff Cove with a group of volunteers to save so many lives on that horrible, horrible day. Sadly, he died in May of this year. He himself had been diagnosed with military PTSD some 12 years after the conflict, and I had the pleasure and privilege of working with him during the unfortunately unsuccessful campaign to prove the need for residential respite and rehabilitative provision for veterans with complex military mental health issues and other related problems in Wales. I know last year I questioned you again about Welsh Government's current position on reviewing that need for residential provision. I wonder if you could update us on what work might have followed since then, at the very least in memory of Dr Steven Hughes, who was a medic and a military man who understood at first hand how desperately deep that need was in Wales and beyond. 

You refer to Veterans' NHS Wales, and you talk about a sum of £700,000. I understand that Veterans' NHS Wales is currently reducing waiting lists, but dependent on third sector funding to do so. What dialogue are you having with Veterans' NHS Wales to put in place sustainable funding to ensure that that continued reduction in waiting lists will move into the future rather than come to an end when that third sector funding runs out.

You also referred to Change Step, and I was involved with that from inception. I spoke at its launch and recognise the vital work it does. It also is dependent on third sector funding. Again, what dialogue are you having, given the recognition by yourself and your predecessors of the vital work they play in filling gaps that cannot be reached by the statutory sector, to ensure again sustainability for that programme, given the stop-go experience it has had? 

You refer to the £250,000 bespoke funds for children of service personnel. How do you respond to concern that that is still less than the amount that would be made available if the service pupil premium, available in England and received by the Welsh Government through Barnett consequentials, was actually made available to deliver a service pupil premium in Welsh schools, as it is across the border?

You refer to housing, and you quite rightly acknowledge the self-build project at Tŷ Ryan in Wrexham. What engagement are you having, particularly with First Choice Housing Association and Alabaré, who not only supported that project but, again, are doing great work in delivering veteran-specific housing in many parts of Wales and, through Alabaré, frequently having to then provide broader health and social support, albeit that its officers are housing officers only? 

You referred to the SToMP or Supporting Transition of Military Personnel scheme, working with veterans in prison to improve education and give them skills to adjust to civilian life. What evaluation of outcomes has been or will be undertaken so that, as with every other effective programme, we can learn what works well and what needs to be done differently?

You referred to the Welsh Local Government Association covenant funding for the armed forces liaison officers, and you've acknowledged two years extra funding from the Welsh Government when the current funding expires. As you know, last year, the cross-party group on armed forces and cadets produced a report on the armed forces covenant in Wales and its implementation, which included a recommendation that the Welsh Government consider the appointment of an armed forces commissioner for Wales to improve the accountability of public sector organisations for the delivery of the covenant, and that would've required publication of an annual report to be laid in the National Assembly for Wales on adherence to the covenant. This was supported and endorsed by the armed forces community and armed services' heads. So, whilst I acknowledge the important and valued role that the armed forces liaison officers do and can play, how will you fill the gap in terms of the need to lay a report to the Assembly, nationally, and to ensure the accountability of public sector organisations across Wales to the covenant?

And finally, you refer to the employment pathway. Again, you referred to this in your statement last year and in the year before that; your predecessor also referred to that. Now you indicate that it's about to be launched, so it's been a long wait—let's hope it has been worth the wait. But can you confirm how implementation and delivery of that has been designed actually with the third sector bodies, which you rightly praise, and others, and with the business and employment organisations, potentially including the likes of Remploy that will have to work with and support people as they move along the pathway that you will shortly announce? Thank you.

I'm grateful to the Conservative spokesperson for his general welcome of the statement and for the points he made. I remember watching the Falklands conflict taking place, and it's the first time in my lifetime and my experience that we'd seen war in such a way. For many of us who were born in the shadow of world war two, we'd not seen a conflict of that sort, and then to see it taking place and the human impact of that I think was something that has affected many of us. I recognise the work of Steven Hughes and I join you in paying tribute to him and to others who have worked so hard to ensure that the veterans of that conflict and people who fought in the Falklands have the support to sustain them through their lives, and that we also recognise those people who didn't come home from the Falklands, and we do that as part, not just of our annual remembrance tributes, but we do that in the way that we design and deliver on the covenant commitments as well.

There has been a number of different conversations taking place over the years about residential provision. It is the advice that I have received that we do not have the requirement for that at present. It is something where I have an absolutely open mind. I do not take the view that it is absolutely not needed, but the advice I have received is that where we need residential provision, it is best delivered in some cases by the military themselves and in other cases through existing provision. So, I've not received a case made to me for a new investment in residential provision. If that case is made and if people wish to make that proposition, then I would be happy to consider it, but at the moment I have not received such a proposition on that.

The Member will be aware that additional funding for Veterans' NHS Wales was announced last year and that has increased the budget and the capacity of Veterans' NHS Wales. The Member made reference to third sector organisations on a number of occasions in his contribution and he also described the third sector as, in some ways, filling in the gaps. I would take a different view to him on that. I would regard the third sector as a crucial part of how we deliver services—not simply filling in the gaps of others, but actually delivering services in their own right. I hope that our relationship with the third sector is sufficiently robust as to enable us to work constructively with all organisations, whatever their legal or charitable status, to deliver the services that are required. Certainly, a number of third sector groups and organisations are represented on the expert group that we have established and play a full part in that. 

I will say, at the same time: I met the Scottish Government two weeks ago to discuss the work that they do on this area, and I did take the opportunity to discuss the work of their commissioner. The reason I gave serious consideration to this but decided not to support the appointment of a commissioner role in Wales is for two reasons. First of all, I felt that the funding and the resources made available would be better made available, at a time of austerity, in funding front-line services, and that we actually invest in the delivery of services to people who require those services. I've been greatly impressed by the work of the local authority liaison officers, and I believe that that was a good way of reinforcing the work that's already been delivered.

The second issue is the point that you made in your contribution—that about accountability. For me, accountability is here. Democratic accountability is more important to me, and it is important to me that Ministers are held to account in this place for the work they do and the commitments they make. I do not believe that it's the role of Government to create the structures of accountability. That is the role of the National Assembly—to ensure and to create accountability of Government to this place. I think it's an important part of our democracy that Ministers are held to account by democratically elected and accountable Members for the commitments that we make and the services we deliver. So, there's both a practical and, perhaps, a principled view there in terms of taking forward that particular issue.

The Member, Deputy Presiding Officer, also asked about the evaluation of different programmes. He mentioned the SToMP programme in particular. There will be an annual report. We talk about accountability—accountability, of course, has to be informed accountability as well, and that annual report, which we will publish in the spring, will provide Members with the opportunity to hold us to account for these commitments, and there will be evaluation of all our programmes contained within that.

The final point, Deputy Presiding Officer, made, I think, was that on pupil premiums and payments. The funding available to schools and to support young people is a significant sum of money, and it recognises the way in which school spending is directed. There was a long conversation yesterday at the veterans board in London, where there was clear differential, if you like, between how support is delivered in the different countries of the United Kingdom. I hope I'm not giving anything away here, but the strategy, when it is published next week, will contain some very clear visions and ambitions and principles that are shared by all Governments of the United Kingdom. But it will also take the view that the way in which these ambitions and these visions are delivered will be different in each one of the countries of the United Kingdom, and that recognises both our devolved responsibilities and also different ways of working. I will say that it is important that we have the ability to do that, rather than simply say, 'If something's done in England, then therefore, automatically, it must be done in Wales.' I will be reporting on the success or otherwise of our funding for school support in the spring, and I hope at that time the Member may well be persuaded that this is the right approach to take.   

May I, too, thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement and, indeed, welcome the statement and all of the excellent work that is being done in this important field? I won’t rehearse issues that already have been raised, but I think it’s important at the beginning to acknowledge the excellent work of the British Legion over a number of years, and also the other charities that operate in this particular field.

My grandfather fought in the first world war, in the battle of the Somme and in Ypres. He survived, but he suffered long-term injuries—injuries that never left him. There was precious little support available for my grandfather at the time, and people didn’t talk about the atrocities that they saw. Things have changed, and there is a great deal more support in this field. But from my past as a GP in my community dealing with veterans especially, but also former members of the RAF, when people leave the armed forces—this is a vitally important time and it's a very difficult time for them, because people who have been living their lives in the armed forces have been in a very close, disciplined society, and a great deal of things are done for them, and their lives run according to that discipline. It’s so different to the outside world and there is a great deal of support work that is being done, but again, as the Cabinet Secretary has recognised, there is more that we could do.

In terms of the health services, I hear what you say about the support that there has been for the health service, but one area of concern for us as GP is that we can’t get hold of the medical details of those who have been members of the armed forces when they come out to us and become members of our society once again. We don’t have those details that have come from what’s happened to them, over a great many years, in many cases—relevant, pertinent medical details that we should know about. And very often, of course, we never access those details, so there is often a challenge for the health service to be able to get hold of those details and to be able to treat ex-service personnel appropriately on the basis of their medical record, and it’s often a very difficult record to get hold of. That’s the only point that I wanted to make this afternoon. I’d like to ask for clarity from the Cabinet Secretary on that issue, because it’s very relevant and pertinent to how we deal with health issues and mental health issues for those people who have served their nation.

But I do welcome very much all of the work that is being done to support our army veterans, our navy veterans and ex-members of the air force. I’m aware that time is against us, but I very much hope and pray that my children and their children will never be compelled to go to war. Thank you very much.

I’m grateful to the Plaid Cymru spokesperson for his comments today. I think he, like me, is of an age where we recall speaking to family members and members of our communities who had served in the first world war. I recall speaking to family members and seeing people who I believed at that time to be very old—in their 50sprobably; the same age as I am now—when I was a child in Tredegar, and they had fought in the first world war. I saw the impact that that had had throughout their lives, and I think it’s something that we must all bear in mind when we remember the events of a century ago. And as you said in concluding your contribution, thank goodness that our own children will not have to fight in the way that people from previous generations have had to fight on our own continent. I think that each and every one of us, when we remember the sacrifice made by so many people, do think what we can do to ensure that we don’t only remember and commemorate our history, but that we also ensure that we don’t repeat that history. I think that that is a lesson for each and every one of us.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the Member asked a hugely important question on how we share data, and this is something that we have been discussing. There is a project proceeding at the moment, where we do work with the health department in the UK to ensure that we make progress in this area, and this has been discussed twice in the board that I was a part of yesterday, and progress has been made. But the Member is exactly right in his analysis that there have been problems in sharing information and sharing data. It is something that we do have to resolve, and the Welsh Government and the UK Government are working on this together to ensure that we do resolve these problems.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his comprehensive statement today? On Sunday, across Wales and the rest of the UK, our servicemen and women, ex-armed forces and many organisations, along with the public, will come together to honour those who have lost their lives in service of this country. This year being the one-hundredth anniversary of the guns falling silent at the end of world war one makes it an especially poignant time. But it is worth noting that, since the end of world war two, there has been only one year, 1968, when our armed forces were not engaged in armed conflict somewhere in the world.

Remembrancetide, as it is now called, is a noble and fine commemoration, but in Wales, as in the rest of the UK, we have men and women leaving the armed forces who subsequently find great difficulty in adapting to what to them is now an alien environment. On leaving they tend to miss the discipline, the shared values and the sense of belonging that is present in all the forces. Recognising and dealing with this goes beyond simple rehabilitation. It's about creating an ongoing support network. This cannot be left to the forces to deal with on their own. It is the duty of Government, both the UK and in Wales, to make sure measures, institutions and infrastructure are in place to help facilitate the best possible transfer for those ex-forces personnel, whether physically or mentally injured or not, back into civilian life.

One of the most important elements of this adjustment will be the opportunity for employment. Through employment they will find self-esteem and a sense of achievement and belonging. It is incumbent on both Governments to ensure the right opportunities are put in place to make sure that each and every one of our ex-servicemen and women have the ability to re-engage with civilian life. It is gratifying to see the Welsh Government is addressing this crucial issue through the employment pathway and working with the business community to develop an employers' toolkit. I will at this point re-echo Mark Isherwood's call for an armed forces commissioner who could oversee all the interventions that, we have to acknowledge, the Welsh Government is in fact putting in place.

In conclusion, Dirprwy Lywydd, each and every one of us owe a great debt to our armed forces personnel, both from the two great wars, but also from the conflicts they have been engaged in since. It is not enough to simply remember and recognise their sacrifice. We must carry on supporting those institutions that provide for them once their service days have ended.

I'm grateful, again, for the words of the UKIP spokesperson in describing remembrance. Let me say this: he used the term 'our community will come together', and our community does come together and our community will come together and our community has been coming together to remember all those who served. The Member for Clwyd West spoke earlier about the Royal Welch Fusiliers and their service in the middle east. Of course, in the middle east they would have been serving alongside Indian soldiers. They would have been standing alongside Hindus and Muslims, fighting in the name of the Crown, and they would have been standing as comrades together. I was proud to see Black History Month in the last few weeks paying tribute to all those soldiers from all those different parts of the world who fought in the first world war, and it is important, I think, that we recognise through Black History Month, through reaching out to all parts of our community, that, when we talk about our community, we talk about all those people who fought and all those people who died, and all those people who made those sacrifices. That includes all of the people who fought under the union flag in order to secure our freedoms and to secure the way in which we live today. And I think it was especially poignant when I saw members of this Government standing alongside members of the black community in Wales in the last few weeks making those very points.

The Member is also right when he talks about the covenant as a reality of remembrance. Remembrance is not simply one week in November—it is the reality of what we do week in, week out, every week and every month of the year. The delivery of the covenant is the delivery, by the whole nation, of not just its gratitude to those who have served, but its recognition of the sacrifices that they make in order to keep us all safe.

The issues over employment are issues that are well made and issues that I will continue to address and that will be addressed in the annual report we publish in the spring.

Let me conclude by saying this: I recognise that the work of the all-party group has been important. I value the democracy that we have here in Wales. I value the democracy of this place. I value the work of this place as a Parliament, holding the Government to account. And I believe it is in this place that our accountability should be delivered. Not in private, if you like, and not through a bureaucracy, but delivering services day in, day out to the service community, and then to be held to account for the delivery of those services. I'm yet to be convinced about the role of an armed forces commissioner. For me, it is important that we invest in services and that we value and exercise accountability through our democracy.

As we approach this week of remembrance for our nation, may I welcome, strongly, the Cabinet Secretary's statement outlining the actions taken by the Welsh Government to mark this important and memorable time throughout the year? In my constituency of Islwyn, the importance that communities place and their desire to come together to never forget can be visually evidenced on street after street. And, across Wales, men, women and children will be wearing poppies and attending remembrance services in our schools and churches and respecting those moments of silence. I've also been struck by the large poppies on the streets of Pontywaun and Risca and all across Islwyn, and I want to, in this place, thank those committed individuals like Bernard Osmond in my constituency and our armed forces local authority champions of the ilk of Andrew Whitcombe and Alan Higgs, and the many other committed individuals and voluntary organisations who, each and every year, ensure that our collective memory holds dear.

Within Islwyn, each community wants, strongly, to ensure that future generations are aware of the sacrifice made by our armed forces, to recognise the freedoms we hold so dear and that cost so much. And I do look forward, with great interest, to the publication in the spring of the Government's annual report on the progress made in delivering our commitments for our armed forces community and our veterans. Will the Cabinet Secretary, therefore, outline for me the importance and value that the Welsh Government places on this annual report, and how it will act as a significant benchmark for future action?

Deputy Presiding Officer, the Member outlines the people who work so hard in Islwyn to ensure that this remembrance takes place in a way that values and appreciates and demonstrates the national value and appreciation that we all feel for those who have served. The speech that she made, describing those great people in Islwyn, could be made by each one of us, I think, describing those same people in our own constituencies who work so hard to ensure that the remembrance events that will be taking place in every community across Wales and elsewhere this weekend are events that do commemorate and reflect upon the sacrifices made.

The Member, Deputy Presiding Officer, made mention of local authority champions. I think it's important that we do recognise the work of local authorities in delivering many of the services that we have described and debated this afternoon. The work of the champions in each local authority is to ensure that local authorities do work cohesively and holistically to deliver the sort of services that veterans need, require and have an absolute right to do so. Can I say—? Through the Cymru'n Cofio series of events, a programme that we've followed over the last four years, I hope that we have sought to remember and to understand what war actually is and the sacrifices that were made by people who had no idea of what they would face in the trenches and elsewhere.

I think one of the most poignant things I've seen in recent weeks in the period running up to this armistice commemoration was the colourisation of some of those video clips that we've seen. All of us over the years have seen the same video footage of men walking, all too often to their deaths, across northern France. And, you know, when they're colourised, you see their faces in a different way, and they look just like you and they look just like me.

I hope that all of us, when we flash across northern France on the Eurostar, will look out across those fields and will understand that it is just a little more than a lifetime ago that those fields were not green pastures but were mud and blood of people who died in a futile war, which we assure people that we remember today, and the greatest act of remembrance can be that we will continue to remember their sacrifices but also remember what war is, and remember the words of Dai Lloyd in saying that what we have to do is always to ensure that we do not send our people to war unless it is to defend the interests and the life and the freedoms of this country.

And, finally, Darren Millar.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his extremely kind and generous words about the work of the cross-party group on the armed forces and cadets? I have to say, it's been a pleasure to be able to work with the Welsh Government to improve the lot of servicemen and women and veterans in Wales in recent years—both with you and your predecessor. So, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do that.

I just wanted to ask one question. I was struck by your comments about the other theatres of war in addition to the western front and was pleased that you had made reference to the theatre of war in the middle east. I had the opportunity to place a wreath on top of Mount Scopus two years ago in Jerusalem in order to commemorate the role and the sacrifice of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and other Welsh troops who had lost their lives in the battle for Jerusalem and Gaza and in Be'er Sheva. I think it is important that we remember these events and that there are permanent memorials in those nations where Welsh blood has been shed. 

Can I ask the Cabinet Secretary what work the Welsh Government now may be able to do, perhaps alongside the UK Government, to make sure that it's not just in cemeteries that these things are remembered but also in other locations in those theatres to ensure that the memory and the sacrifice of those who lost their lives is not forgotten?

Yes, I do agree. I'm grateful to the Member for Clwyd West for making those points and grateful to him also for paying tribute to not just the work of officials and others and the expert group and the cross-party group, who all work together in order to deliver this, but also the work of my predecessor. I think this week is a difficult week for many of us in very many different ways. I knew, when I took over this portfolio from Carl, that I was taking over a piece of work that he strongly believed in, where he'd worked extraordinarily hard to put in place many of the programmes that we've been discussing and describing this afternoon. Certainly, I would want, this afternoon, to place on record my continuing gratitude to him for what he did as a Member here and as a Minister in this place. I hope that all of us will in some way remember that this week as well, in our own way.

In terms of the wider issues about memorials that have been raised by the Member for Clwyd West, I agree with him; I think it is important that we do recognise, in the way that he's described, the sacrifices of previous generations. I've described already, in answer to points raised by Dai Lloyd, that we do need to recognise the reality of what war means and what war actually is, and that we don't fall into what I believe is the mistake of believing in a more romantic view of it, but we recognise the reality of what it actually means to people and to communities and to families.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

And in doing so, I hope that we can work—and I do think that the Governments of the United Kingdom—. We will have our differences from time to time, but my experience is that the Governments of the United Kingdom work well together to deliver for this agenda. The conversations that we had yesterday were all positive conversations across the table in London, and I hope that it will continue to be so. I will be meeting the Ministry of Defence again next week in order to consider our ongoing support for serving members of the armed forces and I hope that we will be able to work together, and am confident that we can work together with both the MOD and with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to ensure that we have the appropriate memorials that enable us to not just remember the sacrifices of past generations, but also to ensure that future generations understand that history and don't repeat our mistakes.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.