Sir Keith Speed
Naval officer and Conservative minister who clashed with Margaret Thatcher over defence cuts
SIR KEITH SPEED, who has died aged 83, was Margaret Thatcher’s minister for the Royal Navy until he was sacked in 1981 after protesting against cuts to the service, months before Argentina invaded the Falklands.
A former naval officer who while at the MOD designed a uniform for the First Lord of the Admiralty, Speed served on the Conservative benches for 29 years, representing first Meriden and then Ashford.
His resignation, and other protests from both sides of the Commons, led to the cuts being deferred, though deeper reductions were implemented after the recapture of the islands. It also led Mrs Thatcher to abolish ministerial posts specifically for each service. Instead, the MOD was allocated two junior ministers, for the armed services and for procurement.
But the campaigning continued and, from the backbenches, Speed kept up his crusade against naval cuts, came out against the Trident nuclear deterrent, and was a leading opponent of privatising the railways and Royal Mail.
Herbert Keith Speed was born at Evesham on March 11 1934, the son of Herbert Speed, a company director, and the former Dorothy Mumford. He was a descendant of the cartographer and historian John Speed.
Despite there being no naval tradition in his family, he enrolled at Dartmouth after leaving Bedford Modern School, completing his training at Greenwich.
Speed served in the carrier Ocean during the Korean War. When emergency personnel from the Hillsborough disaster threatened to sue their employers over the trauma they had experienced, he wrote:
“As a midshipman based in flying control on a carrier, I remember colleagues from the wardroom being burnt to death before my eyes when their aircraft crashed on the flight deck. I remember another 19-year-old midshipman who had to supervise the disposal of the remains of a naval airman who had backed into an idling propeller. I cannot imagine anyone in the Royal Navy at that time even dreaming of suing the Admiralty for these experiences.”
Speed had to leave the regular Navy in 1956 because of migraines, but stayed in the reserve, finishing as a lieutenant commander. Returning for training, he was on board Fearless in
1968 when she was diverted to Gibraltar for the Wilson-smith negotiations on the future of Rhodesia.
In civilian life Speed worked in sales at Heinz, Amos Electronics and Plysu Products. He also became an active Conservative. Speed was national Young Conservative chairman in 1963-65, and when his term ended joined the Conservative Research Department. He also became press adviser to Edward Heath and his party chairman Tony Barber.
In March 1968 Speed fought the bellwether seat of Meriden in a by-election caused by the death of its Labour MP. With Harold Wilson’s government unpopular Speed took the seat in a straight fight by 15,263 votes.
Meriden was home to every major British car company except Ford and Vauxhall, and during the 1970 election, Speed campaigned on his Meridenbuilt Triumph motorcycle. Re-elected by 4,724 votes as Heath came to power, he was appointed a junior government whip, and promoted after a year to Lord Commissioner of the Treasury.
In April 1972 Heath made him Parliamentary Under-secretary for the Environment. Speed helped Peter Walker pilot through his reorganisation of English local government, but otherwise was responsible for transport.
In April 1973 he pushed through the compulsory wearing of crash helmets, saying he had worn one since buying his first bike in 1950.
Triumph, ironically, contributed to Speed’s defeat at the snap February 1974 election, as its Meriden plant closed just as Britain went to the polls. It would revive for a time as a workers’ co-operative, but despite his own efforts to save the marque Speed lost to Labour’s John Tomlinson by 4,485 votes. With a second election likely, he tried for Altrincham & Sale and Chichester before being selected at Ashford, where Bill Deedes was standing down. He was elected that October with a majority of 6,025.
When Mrs Thatcher became Tory leader in February 1975, she appointed Speed a local government spokesman. Two years later she moved him to Home Affairs under Willie Whitelaw.
In 1978 he secured a “half-hearted apology” from Labour’s Home Secretary Merlyn Rees for having claimed he would send home immigrants holding UK passports. Whitelaw and Speed had to make speeches denying any policy of mass repatriation.
Coming to power in May 1979, Mrs Thatcher sent Speed to the MOD as Parliamentary Under-secretary for the Royal Navy; he gave up his rank in the RNVR to avoid conflicts of interest.
It soon became clear that severe cuts to the Navy were the price of adopting Trident, and in a speech at Tenterden in May 1981, Speed launched a thinly veiled attack on the Mod’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir Ronald Mason, who proposed scrapping much of the surface fleet to save £8 billion over 10 years. Speed appealed to the Cabinet over the head of the Defence Secretary, John Nott, to reject an “irreversible” rundown of the Navy, and spoke of the need to “show a welcome presence” to the Falkland Islanders.
Nott was under orders from the Prime Minister to secure the cuts in order to accommodate Trident. Furious at Speed’s speech, Mrs Thatcher summoned him to No 10, and sacked him when he refused to resign. Colleagues cheered when he said: “I was not elected by my constituents, nor appointed by the Prime Minister, to preside over any kind of major cutback to the surface fleet of the Royal Navy.”
That July Nott announced a reduction from 59 destroyers and frigates to “about 50”. Speed said “about 20” would actually go, with planned submarines not being constructed.
Days before Argentina invaded in March 1982, Speed asked Nott how the government could afford £8 billion for Trident, but not £3 million to keep the ice patrol ship Endurance to meet a current threat. When the Task Force was dispatched, Speed declared himself vindicated.
The conflict led to some threatened ships being retained, and others recommissioned. Speed declared himself “happier than I was”, but within months the rundown resumed. In June 1984, he called outright for Trident to be dropped.
After the 1983 election, Speed served on the Defence Select Committee. At the height of the row over Westland, he clashed with the trade and industry secretary Leon Brittan over whether all the facts had come out; days later, Brittan resigned.
Promotion of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link through his constituency led him to seek more generous compensation for home owners. Eyebrows were raised when it emerged that he was also chairman of Westminster Communications, a lobbying firm with British Rail among its clients.
Knighted after the 1992 election, Speed became, with Robert Adley, a leading Tory critic of rail privatisation. After Adley’s sudden death, Speed took the campaign forward. The transport secretary John Macgregor stood his ground. but Speed did force the government to continue concessionary railcards for pensioners and students.
Speed was a UK representative to the Council of Europe and Western European Union. He also chaired all-party committees formulating proposals for a new Royal Yacht and promoting friendship with Turkishoccupied Northern Cyprus, where he owned a villa.
He left the Commons at the 1997 election, Damian Green seeing off David Cameron to take his place.
Speed’s books included Sea Change (1982). He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Kent in 1996.
In 1961 Keith Speed married Peggy Clarke. She survives him with two sons and a daughter. Another son died aged 17 months.
Sir Keith Speed, born March 11 1934, died January 12 2018