Of all the difficult issues I had to deal with as a Minister, the kidnapping of British citizens abroad was one of the toughest.

Sometimes we were lucky, and the victim got out alive. Sometimes we were not.

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In my time as Foreign Secretary the kidnapping of both Ken Bigley, an engineer, and Margaret Hassan, an aid worker, both ended in the way we all feared, with their brutal murders.

The barbaric killing last week of the taxi driver from Eccles, Alan Henning, has once again raised questions about how the British government should handle such situations.

Is it right to refuse to pay ransoms, right for there to be a media blackout, right to be sceptical about intermediaries offering ‘help’?

My answer to each is yes.

To pay ransoms would increase the risk of many more British citizens being kidnapped, and the actual payments would help further to finance the terrorists. The UK is a democracy. The Government does not and cannot control the media.

It can, however, give advice – and usually where lives are at risk, the advice is followed.

There is no knee-jerk view that publicity should never be given to a kidnapping. But generally the interests of the victim are better served if the kidnappers learn as little as possible about what actions are being taken to secure release.

Kidnappers invariably work in gangs. The less media coverage, the more likely that argument within the gang may break out.

Crucial in handling every kidnap situation is for the Foreign Secretary personally to stay close with the victim’s family.

I tried to do so, as have my successors.

But bear in mind that families are put under huge pressure; different family members may well react differently.

The government may not always be successful, but in these hugely complex and tense situations I can testify, however, that it is always doing its very best.