Chief of the General Staff's speech at the opening of Telford Gun Hall

Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen, it is an absolute privilege to be here at Telford today. This marks the return of large-calibre gun barrel manufacturing to the United Kingdom. This is a capability that sadly has been absent from these shores for decades.

I say sadly because Great Britain has a proud history of producing its own artillery. For centuries the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich was synonymous with excellence in this technology, and it produced artillery that shaped the outcomes of conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars through the World Wars and into the Cold War.

That arc of history reminds us that whilst armies, navies and air forces can win the battles, it takes nations to come together to win wars. The world today has brought that lesson sharply back into focus. Modern warfare consumes equipment and ammunition at extraordinary rates. In Ukraine, we know that both sides fire tens of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition every day. And that generates a weight of fire and levels of lethality across the battlefield that drones alone cannot replicate.

So, to be ready to defend against attack, we must be prepared to replace and repair those fighting systems at the rate of their consumption. But industrial capacity cannot be conjured in a crisis. It must be built before the conflict.

And this facility represents an important step, a really important step in that direction. It supports the modernisation of our land forces whilst also rebuilding the skills and industrial capacity on which our future fighting power depends. It is also an incredibly strong signal of intent, a commitment to the partnership between governments, industry, and the armed forces to build the national arsenal that underwrites our national security and allows the nation’s soldiers to protect all that we hold dear.