Members frequently begin a contribution by thanking or congratulating the Member who has moved the motion for debate. In that vein, I will thank both Mark Isherwood as the introducer of the motion, and Darren Millar as its tabler. I would like, though, to go beyond that standard formula today to recognise the very substantial work that Darren Millar has done over many years in a number of different capacities to support the armed forces in Wales and so strongly link this institution with their work. Thank you, Darren.

Of course, the work that any of us as Members do does not compare with the risks and sacrifices that members of all our armed forces bear on our behalf. That is why it's so important both that we remember the ultimate sacrifice given by so many for the freedom and relative peace we enjoy today and the work today of our armed forces to help maintain that.

Mick before me spoke of our different heritages, and my mother is Irish and my grandfather served as a Fianna Fáil member in the Dáil in Dublin, yet he only served one term. And we believe, at least I understand from family, that this was in part at least because he thought that Ireland should have adopted a more pro-British policy during the second world war rather than a strict neutrality, which ended with that message on Hitler's death from the Irish President. 

I think it's so welcome now that, in Ireland, people who did serve in the British armed forces, whether in the first world war or the second world war or otherwise, are now remembered and given their just due. I find that as something that is very welcome and so important to their families.

We also today recognise the support that our armed forces give to civil authorities in other key respects, including potentially now a COVID vaccination programme. Because of COVID many of us have been unable to attend remembrance services this year in the way we normally do. I therefore conclude with that familiar refrain, never dimmed by repetition:

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.'