MPs face a battle with Gordon Brown to secure an above-inflation pay increase when the official recommendations on parliamentary salaries are published this month.

Ministers have already received a report from the Senior Salaries Review Body, which helps to set MPs’ pay and allowances every three years. It recommends that MPs receive an increase to the basic salary of £60,277 of more than the current rate of inflation, according to an official who has seen it.

Mr Brown is determined to hold increases to the same inflation-matching rate as that offered to nurses and other public sector workers. The Government will also oppose a suggestion that taxpayers fund MPs’ constituency offices directly. However, ministers are likely to accept that the incidental expenditure allowance should be brought under control.

The scene is now set for a clash with backbenchers from all parties. Some want their salaries raised to about £100,000, arguing that MPs have fallen far behind equivalent professions. Evidence submitted to the SSRB by MPs, and published at the same time as its report, is expected to detail the salary increases paid to GPs and head teachers in recent years.David Cameron is keen to avoid being dragged into a row over pay. He raised eyebrows recently by saying that MPs should be stripped of the power to set their own salaries. He said that he would do his job for “half as much”. Some Tory backbenchers pointed out that, as Leader of the Opposition, he was paid more than twice the basic MP’s salary.

Mr Brown faces a revolt from Labour MPs representing English constituencies who fear that he is preparing to abandon a pledge to increase their powers. Soon after entering No 10 in June he announced plans to establish nine select committees to monitor each of the English regions.

Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House, is understood to have serious doubts over the plans, believing that they could prove an expensive failure.She is supporting more informal alternatives, similar to the grand committees used in the past by Scottish and Welsh MPs to air relevant issues.

Kevan Jones, Labour MP for Durham North, said that Ms Harman risked stirring up further resentment. “Any attempt to water down the proposals will cause deep dismay in the North East of England and, I suspect, many other areas as well,” he said.

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