80 years ago Hitler invaded Poland and started the Second World War.
It was on 3 September 1939 that our Government’s courageous decision was made, and the six long year global battle against tyranny triggered.
The threat posed to our sovereignty and the freedoms we enjoy today were clear then, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the 384,000 soldiers who gave their lives for our nation, and the courage they and Winston Churchill showed in being prepared to fight until the bitter end.
As the Prime Minister famously said:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”.
Despite the horrors of that war having touched every nation globally, there remains a significant need to defend our national security.
On this important anniversary not only do I want to thank those who gave their lives to our nation 80 years ago, but all those who continue to work to make our communities safer places today.
They need and deserve our solid support because it is a sorry fact that serious threats keep coming our way.
This is why I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement in his Spending Round last week that an additional £2.2billion will be made available to help our world-class Armed Forces, and an extra £750million invested so to begin recruiting 20,000 new police officers to assist in keeping our streets safe.
Undoubtedly, admirable work is already being undertaken by police officers.
I saw this first-hand when I recently had the pleasure of giving an afternoon of my time to shadowing officers whilst they carried out work here in Llandudno. However, I am sure that their efforts and our communities will be greatly assisted by the Government’s plan of getting the first 2,000 officers in place across the Union by the end of March.
In addition to North Wales Police, the Spending Review is excellent news for all of Wales as Sajid Javid promised that an extra £600million of funding will be provided to the Welsh Government.
This see our UK Government provide the biggest ever day-to-day funding settlement for Wales, but it is now down to the Welsh Labour Government to make sure that this is used to deliver the positive changes we need.
I have already started to put pressure on relevant Ministers to deliver extra funding to priority areas.
For example, I have called on the Minister for Education to use some of the new money to create an emergency fund for schools in North Wales that are facing serious financial problems, and have already joined with Welsh Conservative colleagues to start the campaign to convince Cardiff’s Corbynistas to give our area the much needed funding boost it needs.
When our nation was under serious threat Churchill was prepared to protect every part of the country he served, so I hope that Mark Drakeford might take a leaf out of his book and ensure that the extra money is fairly distributed to every corner of Wales.
