Grant Shapps corrected the Commons record on Ukraine

4 March 2024 · Commons Hansard, Written Corrections · Defence

The correction was made by letter from the Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), and printed in Hansard's Written Corrections on 4 March 2024. The corrected text adds the figure 155, which the original did not give. Altogether 12 words differ between the two versions.

The question

The Defence Secretary was certainly in full Duracell bunny mode today, but it is clear that Britain and this Government have much to be proud of in our response to the Ukraine crisis. It was also clear, however, that right from the outset of the invasion it would be an industrial munitions war, harking back to the last century. While Russia has got itself on to a full war economy footing, our Government machine frankly seems to have failed to mobilise British industry in the same way. To highlight that, I will pose a simple question. Why did it take from February 2022 to July 2023 to place the vital order for additional, desperately needed artillery shells?

Original and corrected words

Struck through: original only. Bold: correction only.

Original	Corrected
I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our ~~munitions and missile~~ production ~~is now~~ eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.	I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our production capacity of 155mm artillery ammunition will be eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.

Original

Corrected

I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our ~~munitions and missile~~ production ~~is now~~ eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.

I do not entirely agree with the right hon. Member’s characterisation of the UK response in terms of deindustrialisation. I do agree that it is difficult overall to suddenly ramp up from whatever level we are producing at on a non-war footing, but it is heartening to know—I think this is right, but it is off the top of my head; I will correct the figures if I have got it wrong—that our production capacity of 155mm artillery ammunition will be eight times the level it was before the war, so we have certainly stepped up.

The correction in Hansard.

Receipt

Read from	https://hansard-api.parliament.uk/debates/debate/D515A1D9-1DB8-4402-93BA-F57D968CCD95.json
Date read	15 October 2026
SHA-256	`992869312161b251d80f80eae5ceca7ddd53951fa841bf131168dd6d72af5f95`