The ambulance staff are being encouraged to walk along Brighton's seafront in their uniform at this year's Pride festival.

A South East Coast Ambulance Service paramedic said the local NHS Trust had said it would pay £40 each, the equivalent of two hours' overtime, for workers to take part in their own free time.

Despite the offer, paramedics say the trust has recently stopped paying overtime while they are actually on duty.

The trust, which covers parts of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, has displayed posters around its headquarters advertising the march with an ambulance covered in rainbow-coloured balloons, offering staff free transport and refreshments.

One paramedic told The Daily Mail: "They've had to bribe people with the overtime cash because the overwhelming majority of staff are straight and not totally comfortable about giving up their free time to go on a gay march."

Ann Widdecombe, the Tory MP, said: "It is unacceptable to use taxpayers' money in this way, especially as it's a political movement.

"The fact that the ambulance service is having to bribe paramedics to go is even worse. It would be much better to let them take a day off so they can get refreshed before they have to start their vital work saving lives."

Mark Wallace, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "If ambulance staff want to go to the march on their own behalf in their own time then that's fine, but there's no way we should pay-for-them to go on this march. The ambulance service is there to answer 999 calls and not for attending political events."

A spokesman for the trust, which has around 3,000 at its 63 ambulance stations across the three counties, said community events such as Pride were "an excellent opportunity to engage with the public".

"Due to operational demands it is not always possible to allow staff to carry out such engagement roles while on normal operational duty, which is why overtime is offered," he said.

"The service does not have an overtime restriction in place. However, overtime is targeted to when we expect demand for ambulance services to be higher, such as the winter months."