THE Government was "completely wrong" to allow sailors held captive in Iran to sell their stories to the media, according to Faversham and Mid Kent MP Hugh Robertson.

Mr Robertson, who fought in the first Gulf War as an Adjutant of a battle tank regiment, said the initial decision to allow the Royal Navy sailors to be paid for recounting what had happened should never have been taken.

Ministers have now performed a U-turn and banned any service personnel from selling their stories to the media after the decision sparked a major row.

Mr Robertson, a former Life Guard who served for ten years in the army, said he was horrified when he had heard the news.

"The initial decision was absolutely wrong. When you are in an active service situation, you rely on team work and trust with the people alongside you. If you think that the person next to you might sell their story, that fundamentally changes the whole relationship of trust," the MP said.

"You could only justify the decision if all the money made was given to charity but even so, it is extraordinarily bad for team morale and would dramatically reduce the effectiveness of our fighting forces."

The Ministry of Defence had failed to appreciate the special nature of the armed forces, he added.

"When you are in active service, you are not like the rest of society. They have to be different because of the nature of the job they do. I simply cannot believe that it would have been impossible to stop this happening."

Meanwhile, fellow Kent Conservative MP Roger Gale, speaking before the government’s U-turn, said the decision to allow Armed Forces personnel to accept money for television or newspaper interviews was "offensive to the memory of those who have given everything in the service of their country".

Mr Gale, MP for Thanet North, said: "There are now many - too many - MPs who have lost young constituents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Their families, and those of us who represent them, know that they will never be able to tell their stories to their wives, their mothers, their fathers or their children, never mind to the media."

Mr Gale, a former journalist and TV producer, stressed: "I have been battling to hold the Prime Minister to his undertaking to make adequate facilities available so that bereaved families may be professionally and legally represented at the inquests into the deaths of fallen servicemen and women.

"To date the Government has declined to honour that promise and yet is apparently willing to allow those who have returned from captivity in Iran to capitalise on their experiences while still serving in the armed forces.

"I find that offensive to the memory of those who have given everything in the service of their country.

"I would like to think that those newspapers and those who have sold stories, will now think long and hard and donate the money to a service charity to help to ensure that those who have lost their loved ones in conflict do not have to pay for their own legal representation at inquests."

He added: "That would at least go to right what is a huge wrong."