A broadsheet newspaper has published a secret recording of the shadow home secretary expressing his support for the right of Christian bed and breakfast owners to refuse gay couples.

In the recording published on The Observer website, Chris Grayling suggests that Christian B&B owners should be entitled to turn away gay couples, while Christian hotel owners should be made to accommodate them.

His comments were made last week during a meeting at the Centre for Policy Studies in London in response to a question that arose about civil liberties.

"I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences," he said. "I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home."

He said of Christian hotel owners: "If they are running a hotel on the high street, I really don't think that it is right in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a hotel and be turned away because they are a gay couple, and I think that is where the dividing line comes."

Sexual orientation regulations brought into force by the Government in 2007 make it illegal to refuse to provide a good or service to another person on the basis of their sexuality.

Mr Grayling defended his comments, telling the BBC it was “wholly wrong” to think he was against gay rights.

Grayling, who voted in favour of the Sexual Orientation Regulations, insisted he was not looking to change the law.

“We must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country.

“But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed.”

His comments come weeks after a gay couple said they were left “shocked and embarrassed” after Christian B&B owners Susanne Wilkinson and husband Francis refused to accommodate them because of their sexuality.

Mr Wilkinson said the rights of Christians should not have to be subordinated, while Mrs Wilkinson stressed that the property was not a hotel, but operated as a guest house and private home.