Brown heading for MPs' pay showdown

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A long-delayed review of MPs' salaries to be published in January is expected to recommend a £6,000 boost between now and 2011 - more than 3% a year.

But, with the Prime Minister under fire from police over their pay settlement of effectively less than 2%, the Government will seek to block such a large increase for MPs.

Ministers are being told to support a package in line with other public sector pay rises of about 2% a year, according to one. The row will be settled by a free vote in the Commons next month, however, and many MPs are lining up behind the £6,000 increase the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) is thought likely to suggest.

The SSRB this year completed a triennial review of MPs' pay and expenses for the Government, but its publication has been repeatedly delayed since the summer, due in part to its controversial contents.

It will also cover expenses and allowances, which averaged £135,813 per MPs last year, up 5% on 2005/6.

In a separate development, discussions are under way among the House of Commons authorities about whether MPs should provide receipts for more - or even all - of their expense claims.

Currently, only claims worth more than £250 have to be backed up by a receipt. There are concerns, however, that processing tens of thousands more receipts will incur its own high costs.

Meanwhile, research by the House of Commons Library is being circulated among MPs demonstrating that they would be about £5,500 a year better off now if their salaries had kept up with increases in average earnings since 2002.

MPs' salaries have risen from £55,118 in 2002 to £60,675 in April, the annual increase last year being just 0.66%. The Commons Library has found that the figure would have reached £66,170 this year if rises had reflected pay increases for the rest of the population.