Mr Campbell, the prime minister's chief of staff Jonathan Powell and the drugs "czar" Keith Hellawell are the highest paid special advisers in Whitehall.

From 1 December Mr Campbell and Mr Powell will each earn £91,014. Mr Hellawell will earn £106,057 from the same date.

The salaries are above the standard salary structure for special advisers - ministers' assistants who are appointed from outside the traditional civil service and are allowed to be politically partial in their advice.

New structure

A new salary structure has been brought in for such Whitehall staff, who can expect to lose their jobs when their ministers do.

It will provide them with three salary bands ranging from £26,000 to £76,056.

Keith Hellawell: Earns more than £100,000

In a written Commons answer Cabinet Office Minister Jack Cunningham said the bands had been uprated by inflation.

The lower end of the scale rose by 6.7% from £24,349, while the upper limit rose 3.5% from £73,484.

Tory Party chairman Michael Ancram attacked the salaries, saying: "The newly published salary structure for special advisers shows where the real power lies in Labour.

"It is with the unaccountable army of political henchmen who have been brought into government at the taxpayers' expense.

"The number of these special advisers has doubled under Labour and the salary bill has soared. Some are paid more than cabinet ministers and even the prime minister.

"They are New Labour's fat cats. The prime minister told his party that when they go into government they were not there 'to enjoy the trappings of power'. He has an interesting definition of 'trappings'.

£3.6m bill for advisers

Mr Ancram called for the prime minister to make clear the pay arrangements for all political staff at Downing Street and elsewhere in Whitehall.

Mr Campbell, a former tabloid journalist, and Mr Powell, a former diplomat, both worked for Tony Blair in opposition.

The two received pay rises of 2% in April "in line with other senior civil servants", Dr Cunningham said.

The average pay for the 70 special advisers in Whitehall is £45,378, he added.

This compared, he said, with an average of £46,421 under the previous government.