Richard Corbett, a Labour member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire, accused Ministers of allowing the public to be misled this week by blaming Brussels for a reduction in EU Solidarity Fund aid, from £110m previously promised to £31m.

In reality, he said, the UK Treasury had turned down the other £79m rather than distributing it to flood-hit areas, as was intended, in an effort to minimise any reduction Britain will receive from next year's EU rebate.

In a letter to Flood Recovery Minister and Wentworth MP John Healey, seen by the Yorkshire Post, Mr Corbett said the Treasury's decision was something that he "strongly regretted".

He wrote: "To retain in advance an amount that will compensate for a reduction in the size of the rebate, simply to help the Treasury's final balance sheet next year, but at the expense of hard-hit flood victims is, I think, a regrettable state of affairs.

"To guard against (the size of next year's rebate) at the expense of flood victims is something which, as a representative of one of the affected areas, I strongly regret.

"Furthermore, I would imagine that the rest of the EU is somewhat surprised to see that the main effect of a solidarity fund grant to help the affected areas of the UK is that it simply ends up as an item to help balance the Treasury's accounts."

But last night officials at the Treasury said that because of the way the British rebate from the EU worked, two-thirds of whatever Solidarity Fund money received this year would be taken off the total grant Britain received next year.

They said that in the long term, only £31m of the £110m granted to Britain to repair flood damage in Yorkshire and the South West last summer would actually be new money, which is what they were taking, with the remaining £79m coming from the taxpayer.

Officials said the Treasury had already contributed £88m of British funds to pay for repair work, money made available before the EU grant in March.

A spokesman added: "The British Treasury is only making a net gain of £31m from the European Union Solidarity Fund grant and all of this money is going direct to flood-hit communities across the UK."

On Tuesday, Mr Healey announced that the £31m would go into a new Restoration Fund and be made available to all the councils and emergency services in flood-hit areas.

Last night, he told the Yorkshire Post that Mr Corbett's letter was based on a "technical argument".

But Mr Corbett last night stood by his letter, stating again that the Treasury was taking money away from flood-hit communities.

"They are correct in that in the long run the net gain to the Treasury is only £31m but that ignores the fact that the EU allocated £110m to flood-hit communities and they're now not going to be seeing anywhere near that amount."

He said that the impression left by the Government was that the EU was at fault over this, when in fact the decision had been taken far closer to home.

But Mr Corbett said he did not consider his letter to be an attack on Ministers from his own party.

"I imagine this is solely the responsibility of Treasury mandarins and bean-counters," he said. "The blame can be laid fairly and squarely with them. I do not think politicians would ever choose to draw up policy penalising the victims of floods who have already suffered greatly."