Brown backtracks on MP perks row

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered an embarrassing defeat in his battle to reform MP's allowances when he was forced to drop his plan for a flat-rate attendance payment for MPs.

Brown failed to win support from opposition parties on the measure to replace the controversial 24,000 pound second homes allowance and faced a potentially humiliating defeat in a parliamentary vote on Thursday.

He wrote to the Committee on Standards in Public Life on Monday calling for it to fast-track its inquiry into the second homes allowance and report by July.

"You will also be aware that a consensus has not been reached on the future of the Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure for MPs," Brown wrote to committee chairman Sir Christopher Kelly.

He asked Kelly to consider "MPs attendance at Westminster, the need for transparency and accountability and the desire to reduce the existing limits on the allowances which MPs may claim, producing overall cost savings."

A vote will still take place on Thursday, with Brown asking MPs to approve cutting the requirement for receipts claims from above 25 pounds to zero; making staff appointed by MPs direct employees of the House of Commons and declaring in full where MPs have a second source of income from second jobs.

Opposition parties opposed the daily-rate proposal because they saw it as a payment for simply turning up for work, saying it could have been open to abuse.

They said a similar scheme in the European parliament had failed and produced a "clock-in, clock-out" mentality rather than responsive government.

Conservative Party leader David Cameron reiterated his opposition to the daily payment on Monday, as did the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg.