The Labour Party has defended its decision to spend £7,700 on a hairstylist for Cherie Blair during the general election campaign.

The charges for the services of a personal hairdresser for Mrs Blair for the month of campaigning in the run-up to the poll were revealed in the party's accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission.

An invoice from Andre Suard, a stylist at a top Mayfair salon, is believed to have been declared to the watchdog as an election expense.

After the details were published in the Times on Friday, a Labour spokeswoman suggested it was a price worth paying.

"Mrs Blair worked fantastically hard during the election and visited more than 50 constituencies during the campaign," she said.

"She is enormously popular with the party and, don't forget, we won the election."

But the Times said Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle - a former minister under Tony Blair - complained that the situation was a "real problem".

It was more than twice the cash spent campaigning in his Liverpool Walton constituency, he told the paper.

Downing Street refused to comment on Cherie Blair's Labour Party business but said the prime minister's wife had always paid the full cost for her hairdresser when on official government trips.

"We have dealt with this issue repeatedly in the past," the prime minister's official spokesman told journalists on Friday morning.

"Mrs Blair meets the cost," he added.