MPs were still on tenterhooks last night as they waited to hear whether they would be asked to repay money from controversial expenses claims.

Gordon Brown has already said he will repay £12,415, mainly claimed for cleaning and gardening over five years, and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will repay £910 of the £3,900 claimed for gardening between 2006 and 2009.

Members returned to the Commons expecting that the start of a new Parlia-mentary session would bring a letter from the former civil servant charged with auditing their claims.

But despite the widespread publicity about Sir Thomas Legg’s letters, local MPs had still not received theirs yesterday evening.

It is understood Sir Thomas has set retrospective limits on what he thinks it is reasonable for members to claim, including £1,000 a year for gardening and £2,000 for cleaning.

Pooles Conservative MP Robert Syms said: “Everybody’s a bit edgy, I have to say. It’s a difficult feeling. It’s a little bit like waiting to hear your fate.”

He said it was a “genuine concern” that members could have obeyed the rules but still be asked to pay money back.

The Daily Telegraph revealed in the summer how Mr Syms claimed more than £2,000 in furniture for his second home in London’s West Kensington, but had it delivered to his parents’ home in Wiltshire.

He said the arrangement was for “convenience” but “doesn’t look very good”. He also charged £336 for tax advice.

Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, said MPs should not dispute the letters, amid reports some were set to challenge them in court.

“I just think as MPs we’ve got to be very mindful of public views on the issue,” she said. “We’ve got to be sensitive to the difficulties that people are experiencing themselves in the recession.”

Bournemouth West’s Conservative MP Sir John Butterfill, who voluntarily paid back £17,500 after claims in the Daily Telegraph about his second home expenses, said he had already prepared some further details in anticipation that Sir Thomas would have questions to ask.

He said he had audited books to show that he did not make the £600,000 profit reported by the Telegraph when he sold a second home in Surrey whose mortgage was subsidised by the taxpayer.

He said he could prove that he had spent so much on the property that he sold it at a loss.