GORDON Brown was under fire from Labour colleagues today over his decision to scrap the 10p starting rate for income tax.

The decision - one of the last the Prime Minister made as Chancellor - came into force yesterday.

It was criticised by an influential House of Commons committee as an `unreasonable' way of funding the government's other spending priorities. MPs say poorer people with no children will be penalised.

Graham Stringer, Labour MP for Manchester Blackley, joined the chorus of disapproval this morning when he described the decision as `incomprehensible'.

Mr Stringer added that the level of discontent expressed at a recent meeting between Labour MPs and Mr Brown over the issue had been `unprecedented'.

"It is incomprehensible that a Labour government should be making people who are working for around £18,000 a year worse off," he told the M.E.N.

But other Labour sources rallied round the Prime Minister after the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats tried to exploit splits over tax.

One source said he MPs' meeting had expressed only `a low murmur of concern'.

A report by the Commons Treasury Committee - warning that low paid workers without families would be hardest hit - was expected to fuel rebellion on the Labour backbenches.

But business secretary John Hutton ruled out a rethink of the measure. Mr Hutton insisted that scrapping the 10p rate had been part of a `balanced package' which had left families with children `significantly better off'.

He said: "We are talking in the worst case scenario about half a per cent of net income being the maximum loss."

John McFall, chairman of the Commons committee, said: "It seems strange that the abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax disadvantages mainly low-income households."