Downing Street has expressed ‘full confidence’ in justice minister Jonathan Djanogly, who is in charge of legal aid, following claims in the Telegraphtoday that the minister hired private detectives to find out what his colleagues thought of him.

The newspaper reported that Djanogly paid a private detective agency £5,000 to make ‘discreet inquiries’ about how he was viewed.

The agency’s report is alleged to have concluded that Djanogly was seen as a poor politician by aids in his local party, and had been damaged by claims over his expenses.

Djanogly was the subject of press reports that he had claimed £13,000 for a cleaner who also acted as an au pair.

A Downing Street spokesman said this afternoon that Djanogly had the ‘full confidence’ of Prime Minister David Cameron.

He said Cameron ‘judges the minister on how he performs as a minister’.

In a statement, Djanogly said: ‘Following a series of malicious allegations made against me in newspapers last year, I felt I had to act to find out who was spreading these untrue stories.

‘I instructed a firm of private investigators to try to find out the source of these stories because I was extremely upset that my private family life had been invaded.’

He added: ‘I am sorry if some people judge that I made a mistake. With hindsight I can see that I may have overreacted, but I was being subjected to very malicious, anonymous attacks on my family’.

Djanolgy said the report should have been confidential, and he paid for it himself.