Diolch, acting Presiding Officer.  I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to today's debate on behalf of the Welsh Government in support of those who have served and those who continue to serve.

As a Government, we are very much committed to building on our work supporting serving personnel, veterans and their families in Wales. It would be remiss of me not to start today by talking about the terrible siltation in Ukraine and to reiterate how the Welsh Government stands in support and solidarity with Ukraine and with the Ukrainian people, and is providing £4 million in financial and humanitarian aid to help provide critical support to those in desperate need. 

And many of the points that Jenny Rathbone raised are, obviously, a matter for the UK Government, but I am aware from recent correspondence that there are British troops at readiness to support the humanitarian effort in and around the situation in Ukraine. I think it's also important that we recognise that the current situation may be having an adverse effect on some of our veterans with service-related conditions, arising from their time in war zones, and our Veterans NHS Wales service and a wide-range of support are available for them to access, so perhaps we will recirculate them to Members to make sure they are able to signpost constituents, should they need it.

As a Government, we are committed to supporting the armed forces community and very much recognise their sacrifices. This year, we will honour those who served in the Falklands, 40 years on from that conflict. The First Minister will lead a national commemoration service in June, and I will be supporting additional events, including a cycle ride with veterans, starting off from the national Falklands memorial in Cardiff.

The contribution of our armed forces to our nation is something we all appreciate and never forget, whether thousands of miles away or here at home. And we have all seen, and are all incredibly grateful for, the support our serving personnel have provided during the COVID pandemic, working with the NHS. They've delivered vital supplies, vaccinations, driven ambulances and epitomised the ethos of service not self.

The Welsh Government has welcomed the appointment of Colonel James Phillips as the first Veterans' Commissioner for Wales. As Members will be aware, Scotland and Northern Ireland both have established commissioner roles who work to improve the opportunities for their respective veteran populations, and we will of course support that intention here in Wales. 

I actually had the opportunity to meet Colonel Phillips informally at the St David's Day dinner at the 160th (Welsh) Brigade—the dinner that James Evans tried to tell me was cancelled. I don't know what he was up to there. [Laughter.] I don't know whether they'd just told James it was cancelled. [Laughter.] But in all seriousness, whilst I was able to meet Colonel Phillips informally a couple of weeks ago, we extended an invitation to join us here in the Senedd to learn more about what we are doing in Wales, both as a devolved Government and also how we work together in this place in common cause in support of our veterans and their families.

Indeed, not only can we, I feel, reflect with pride on the part that partnership working has played in our progress in supporting veterans in Wales, but also the cross-party consensus and shared sense of purpose that persists within this place.

Welsh Government officials have already approached UK Government counterparts to arrange regular engagement opportunities where we can discuss how the veterans' commissioner's appointment will add value to the support already provided in Wales within our established structures, and the future needs of our armed forces community.

We're committed to and have a proven track record of working collaboratively to support or armed forces and veterans community in Wales, from our armed forces expert group to our now widely renowned armed forces liaison officers. We very much focus on putting our finite resources into front-line support and services, including: the continued investment in Veterans NHS Wales to make sure veterans have access to the mental health treatment they need; supporting veterans into employment, including a service leaver and veterans employment event in November last year, with the Career Transition Partnership and 160th brigade, something we're keen to build on this year and plan another event; as well as introducing the Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative in November 2020, to provide ex-service personnel with the option of joining the civil service through guaranteed-interview schemes. This is something that we'll be able to provide an update on in our annual report this year, demonstrating our firm belief that veterans have much to offer after their service.

Upholding the principles of the armed forces covenant are fundamental to our work in Wales. We recognise that working with our key partners and now the commissioner and other nations in the UK will help build on the range and scope of support provided. Our network of armed forces liaison officers are unique in the UK and, as we heard, they're embedded within our local authorities and are absolutely essential to covenant delivery across Wales. They continue to deliver key support, including running mental health and first aid courses and training, and establishing veterans hubs, like we've heard from Laura Anne Jones today, in local authorities areas, and providing that really important support on the ground where it's needed. And they also offer a mechanism to take some of those local issues and then to actually feed them to the armed forces expert group for us to be able to plug any gaps that might still exist in services and support.

As a Government, our approach is very much to develop policy in consultation, partnership and on a peer-to-peer basis. Our veterans scoping exercise, which is currently being implemented, engaged with over 1,000 veterans, families and organisations across Wales. It's a level of engagement that we would all expect from any role that represents the views of veterans, and we will obviously clearly support the commissioner to ensure he can best engage with the veteran population in all parts of Wales.

As always, there's always more work to do, and we're absolutely committed to building on this support, particularly in the area of supporting service children, and we're working, at the moment, on a priority around getting that PLASC data and improving that. It's something that we recognised in the scoping exercise, and it's very much a priority for us moving forward now.

One of the things that we do look forward to also discussing with the new commissioner, Colonel Phillips, is the support for those leaving service and returning to Wales. We remain the only country in the UK without a resettlement centre, an issue that we are actively engaged with the UK Government on at present. So, I'd obviously welcome any support for that from Members across the benches in the Chamber.

If I could just turn now to point 5 in the motion and the Welsh Government's annual report, and I'm very happy to give consideration as to whether the suggestion in the motion represents the most effective means of providing scrutiny of the report. The support available for the armed forces community is captured annually in the covenant annual report, and whilst we aren't currently mandated to, we always try to have an annual debate, and that report is laid in the Senedd and scrutinised by members of the armed forces expert group as well. Their feedback is actually included within that report to help inform our priorities moving forward. We also contribute to the UK Government's covenant annual report, which is also subject to scrutiny before the UK Parliament, and I'm very happy to take up the invitation to come along to the cross-party group again in the future.

Acting Presiding Officer, I'd like to start as I began in that collegiate fashion and say the Welsh Government is supporting this motion today and we look forward to continuing to work together with the veterans' commissioner, with all stakeholders and partners, to build on the achievements to date, and to move forward in the interests of our veterans and their families in Wales.