The SNP spent more than £35,000 hiring a helicopter to fly Nicola Sturgeon around Scotland in the run-up to the General Election.

The First Minister's party also shelled out £7,000 on an "I'm With Nicola" umbrella.

But the SNP still spent less per seat than any other party, newly released figures from the Electoral Commission show.

While the SNP's £1.5 million saw it surge to 56 seats, Labour spent £1.6m in Scotland to lose 39 constituencies and hold just one.

The Tories spent nearly £1.3 million to keep Scottish Secretary David Mundell, while Alistair Carmichael's Orkney and Shetland seat cost the Lib Dems just over £300,000.

The figures also show that the Conservatives massively outspent the other parties on advertising on the social networking site Facebook.

Labour, meanwhile, spent £600 on chicken suits and nearly £5,000 on graphics for its pink 'female voters' campaign bus.

But there was no breakdown on the ‘Edstone’, despite estimates it cost more than £30,000.

Labour blamed an administrative error for missing invoices relating to the widely-mocked 8ft 6in, two-tonne slab of limestone, which the party had pledged to put in the garden of No 10 after it won the election.

Overall, political campaigns spent a total of almost £40 million, £5m more than in 2010 but £2m less than in 2005.

The Tories were the biggest spenders with £15.6m, ahead of Labour's £12m and the Liberal Democrats' £3.5m.

The SNP spent the least per seat, at just over £26,000, compared to the Ukip, whose one constituency cost £2.8m.

However, each vote cost Ukip just 73p, the SNP £1.01, the Lib Dems £1.46, Labour £1.29 and the Tories £1.38.

The SNP declared a £35,450 bill for helicopter flights on April 30, and May 1, 2 and 4, just days before the poll.

The maroon Eurocopter Dauphin, from Inverness-based PDG Helicopters, was covered with the First Minister's image and the SNP's “Stronger for Scotland” slogan.

Ms Sturgeon used it for a whistle-stop tour of key seats over the bank holiday weekend before the election.

The SNP's biggest events-related item was a 95cm black and yellow "promotional supermini umbrella" bearing the words "I'm With Nicola", which cost £7,128.

The figures also show that the Conservatives spent more than £1.2 million on Facebook advertising.