Brown to repay more than £12,000

By Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown was engulfed in a fresh expenses row on Monday as an independent reviewer asked him and other MPs to repay thousands of pounds of excessive claims.

Brown said he would himself repay more than 12,000 pounds of claims for cleaning and gardening after retired senior civil servant Thomas Legg concluded he had exceeded maximum annual limits over the past five years.

Legg wrote to MPs after spending months scrutinising claims in the wake of an expenses scandal this year that damaged all the major parties and shook public faith in parliament.

Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron have both attacked abuse of the system and have proposed reforms to clean up parliament.

Stamping out sleaze will be a key issue in an election due by next June that the Conservatives are tipped to win.

As MPs returned from their long summer break, former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith apologised to colleagues for breaching rules on second home allowances.

The expenses furore spread to the Lords, where authorities said deputy speaker Swraj Paul would temporarily step aside while an investigation was conducted into media allegations about his claims for an overnight subsistence allowance.

Paul denies wrongdoing.