Diolch, acting Presiding Officer. I'd first like to declare that I'm still a county councillor on Monmouthshire County Council. I want to thank Darren Millar for tabling today's debate. Being from a family with a history of serving in the armed forces, it's a great chance to join my colleagues and, I hope, many others across the Chamber in welcoming our first ever Veterans' Commissioner for Wales, Colonel James Phillips, and also to recognise the enormous contribution our veterans have made and continue to make in Wales. 

Our new commissioner is a man who recently left the army after serving 33 years, as my colleague has outlined, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and the Balkans. With his vast experience in the armed forces, I'm sure he will bring knowledge, experience and understanding to some of the specific issues that veterans face and represent their needs to the fullest. I've been proud to serve on a council in Monmouthshire that signed up to the armed forces community covenant scheme as part of the Conservative UK Government 2011 initiative to promote a greater understanding between the military and the general public. During my time there as councillor on Monmouthshire County Council, I was honoured to be its armed forces champion. In my region of Gwent, all five local authorities have achieved gold now on the defence employer recognition scheme, and all five have offered the guaranteed interview scheme for the armed forces community, including Monmouthshire. This scheme is a great way to thank and recognise the work that the local authorities do, and for the innovative and thorough ways that they now incorporate veterans in everything that they do now going forward.

It is not just for veterans that we see much-needed support now being given, but thanks to SSCE, Supporting Service Children in Education in Wales, who work hard to co-ordinate research and compile evidence on the experiences of service children in education to ensure their needs are well understood, we see this service benefiting children of serving personnel. However, the lack of data that we have on service children in Wales is actually very worrying, and the absolute need to compound this evidence is so necessary so that we can support those families with service children far better than we do already. We need to know where they are and to pick out where their families are to give them the support that they need. So, it is vital and I hope that our new commissioner will look to address this and ensure that there is up-to-date data on PLASC going forward, which is the place that it needs to be. This will not only benefit veterans, as I've said, but also the children of serving personnel.

The liaison officers, like the incredible Lisa Rawlings in my own Gwent region, play such a vital role in Wales, and I really hope to see their contracts extended or made permanent, to work alongside the veterans' commissioner, as I think that will be an instantly productive team to get the very best for veterans where information can flow both ways. The liaison officers have been pivotal in creating hubs and doing many, many things to help veterans, as was outlined just now by the Member for Meirionnydd. The veterans hub in Caerphilly, run by Kelly Farr and Lisa Rawlings, is having evidenced positive outcomes and is truly a one-stop shop for veterans—similarly in Newport and across many other areas in Wales. Fantastically, we're now seeing one in Monmouthshire as well. These hubs are great examples of best practice that I hope the veterans' commissioner will look to roll out across Wales. There's still an awful lot more to do for our veterans, whether it be ensuring access to NHS dentists for veterans upon leaving the armed forces or for better data collection on our military children. And we must keep striving for better. And I want to thank my colleague Darren Millar for constantly banging the drum for veterans in Wales, and letting people know that, although we have come a long way, we need to do a lot more. 

There's been great work, as has already been mentioned by Jack Sargeant, from the cross-party group, including other Members, cross-party, like Alun Davies, as well as those in our own party who have always been steadfast in their support for the armed forces community in Wales. Five per cent of the UK's population are serving personnel. However, in Wales this figure is doubled to 10 per cent of the Welsh population being serving personnel. And we have around 140,000 veterans living here. It is estimated that 4 per cent of service veterans will suffer some kind of mental health issue, such as loneliness, welfare or addiction problems, often as a result of experiencing combat zones. And veterans are also vulnerable to homelessness, as we know. Currently there are 6,000 homeless veterans in England and Wales.

It is due to these specific issues that still exist in our country that the appointment of a veterans' commissioner has been called for by the Welsh Conservatives since 2014. The new commissioner will act as that voice for ex-servicemen and will be working to enhance support, scrutinising and advising on Government policy. There will be no place for any Government to hide now and I hope that this support for veterans will only be enhanced going forward. I look forward to seeing how Colonel Phillips settles into his new role and I have no doubt that he will work night and day to make Wales the very best place for veterans to live, raise their families and retire, and I urge everyone in this Chamber to support our motion.