May I begin by thanking the Conservative group for tabling this very important debate today? I'll begin with a few brief words explaining how the Plaid Cymru group will vote in this debate. We will support the Government amendment, not because we believe that everything that could be done is being done, Mark Isherwood has made a very effective case that that's not the case, but we're not convinced at this present moment that a commissioner is the answer, though we would be open to being convinced in the future. 

Similarly, with amendment 2, we will abstain on this occasion, though we appreciate the sentiment behind it. We're not yet entirely convinced that legislation is the way forward, but it may be that it does become necessary, and I would certainly personally be very interested in exploring how such legislation could work and could be made to ensure that the covenant is effectively delivered on and that there are sanctions for public services if they fail to do so. 

It is not always right, Deputy Presiding Officer, to use personal experience when we speak in this Chamber, but I feel I wish to do so today. I want to pay tribute to my father, John Mervyn Jones, born in 1910 in Cwm Aman, Aberdare. He joined the Royal Naval Reserve in 1938, not because he was young and naive, he was a 28-year-old schoolteacher, not because he was seeking adventure or longing to fight, he was one of the gentlest men I've ever known and he had seen his uncle come back broken and destroyed from the first world war; fighting was not what my father would have wanted to do. He didn't even join out of patriotism, but he had seen the rise of fascism in Europe, and he was convinced that the only way to defeat fascism was to fight.

He served throughout the war and, like many, spoke relatively little of his experiences. As children, we'd hear the funny stories. My personal favourite was my father describing being served pasta for the first time in Italy and having absolutely no idea what it was or what he was supposed to do with it. Regrettably, particularly for my poor mother, it left him with a long-going resistance to anything that he regarded as foreign food—meat there, vegetables there, and never the twain shall meet. 

Much later, he spoke particularly to me, and particularly when he could describe those experiences through the medium of Welsh, of the darker experiences he faced in the war. But he went on to have a family and a successful career, and he was lucky and regarded himself as lucky. Luckier, of course, than many of today's veterans, who are asked to risk their lives and lose their health in conflicts that many at home oppose. 

My father was horrified at the end of his life to witness the sacrifices asked of our servicepeople in what he regarded as an unjust and unlawful war in Iraq. Having fought himself, he knew what was being asked of them. He would have been sickened to see, as many ex-servicepeople, I suspect, are, our exceptional service personnel here in Wales today being expected to train Saudi pilots to bomb innocent civilians in Yemen. That was not what he fought for. 

He hated war, but he always believed that he had done the right thing and the only thing, and he came home to a grateful nation. He believed that he had defended democracy, he was proud to have done so, and the nation was proud of him. It is much harder emotionally for many of today's veterans, they have been asked to serve in controversial conflicts in very difficult circumstances and with unclear outcomes. Yet, serve they do. 

I passionately believe that, as we remember those who have served in the past, we must ensure that we support today's veterans, particularly those suffering from trauma and mental health problems, after what successive UK Governments have sent them to do. We must honour the covenant. Whatever we think of the conflicts in which those men and women have been asked to serve, serve they did, and we owe them our gratitude, our respect and our support.