Funding for vital flood defence schemes in the South West is to be cut by 16 per cent next year, the Government has confirmed.

But officials refused to produce a list of projects that will not get state aid as a result of the region losing £6 million in 2011/12.

Ministers announced that £521 million would be spent on protecting homes and businesses in England from April.

It is down from around £590million spent on capital and revenue in previous years. Of this, £34 million has been allocated to the wider South West – an area that includes Devon and Cornwall as well as Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset.

It represents a 16 per cent drop from the previous year's allocation of £40 million.

Labour claims ministers are taking a "reckless gamble with people's homes and businesses" as many schemes had been cancelled nationally.

As the devastation in recent years wrought on Boscastle, North Cornwall; Ottery St Mary, East Devon; and mid Cornwall indicate, the Westcountry is particularly susceptible to flooding.

While funding has decreased, the Environment Agency, the quango that oversees the projects, insisted major schemes in the region would go ahead.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs produced an "indicative" list of 33 projects in Devon and Cornwall that are in line for the Whitehall cash.

They include ongoing big schemes such as tidal defences in Shaldon, South Devon, on Teignmouth estuary and in Truro, which will provide protection to hundreds of properties.

The South West Regional Flood Defence Committee is to decide precisely which schemes get how much money over the next few months.

Geoff Boyd, flood and coastal risk manager for the Environment Agency in the South West, said: "We will continue to protect as many homes and businesses as we can. We have plans to work on 147 river and coastal flood defence schemes in the next financial year which, when completed, will increase protection to thousands of homes."

The coalition Government says it has done its utmost to shield spending on flood defences in the spending review.

The Government expects to spend at least £1.2 billion on flooding and coastal erosion over the next four years and improve protection for at least 145,000 homes, environment minister Richard Benyon said.

"Inevitably, it has been necessary to find savings in all areas of Government expenditure," he added.

From the following year, the Government will introduce a new funding mechanism where the state will not pay 100 per cent of the costs, which ministers hope will bring more schemes forward.

Mary Creagh, Shadow Environment Secretary, said: "The Tory-led Government are taking a reckless gamble with people's homes and businesses by cutting the flood defence budget by 27 per cent in cash terms."

In the House of Commons, Stephen Gilbert, Liberal Democrat MP for St Austell and Newquay, whose constituency was battered by floods last year, received assurances from ministers on funding for flood plans and wardens.

He said: "In St Blazey last year, we saw that community flood plans and volunteer flood wardens were able to help protect property and people."