AN ATTEMPT to keep secret the details of MPs’ £87m-ayear expenses claims was abandoned yesterday after an embarrassing climbdown by Gordon Brown.

Amid rising public anger, the Prime Minister scrapped a vote due today that would have exempted MPs from the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) and blocked a High Court ruling.

The decision clears the way for the Commons authorities to release 1.2 million receipts for MPs’ expenses going back over the past three years, possibly within weeks.

Some MPs are reported to have said privately that the detailed information in the claims – for everything from travel and office running costs to furniture in second homes – could force them to resign, if revealed.

The climbdown came after website campaigns urged the public to email their MP to protest and a full-page advert was taken out in one national newspaper condemning the move as “shameless”.

It triggered a furious row between Labour and the Conservatives, amid allegations of double-dealing over an alleged cross-party agreement to exempt MPs from the Act.

Labour had announced it was imposing a three-line whip on its MPs to force through the exemption, believing it had Tory support.

The Liberal Democrats were always opposed.

But late on Tuesday, the Conservatives announced they would also block the exemption – leaving the Labour Government facing the owngoal of expenses being kept secret purely because of the votes of its MPs.

The U-turn came in the Commons, where the Prime Minister said the Government would think again because there was no longer “agreement on the Freedom of Information Act”.

The scale of the confusion was illustrated by the fact that, only an hour earlier, Downing Street briefed reporters that the vote would go ahead and defended it.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, welcomed the Government’s “embarrassing U-turn”, adding: “To exempt MPs from the FOI Act would be completely wrong.

“They should be treated the same as everybody else.”

But Labour MPs were seething, insisting that Tory Cabinet ministers and senior backbenchers had signalled support to allow the exemption to go through.

The receipts, dating back to 2005-06, were due to be released last October, but publication was delayed while documents were scanned and personal details, such as bank accounts and telephone numbers, edited out.

Last week, Commons Leader Harriet Harman said it was too costly and time-consuming to continue, but about £1m had already been spent.