THOUSANDS of Southampton pensioners are being urged to return a controversial survey about a proposed Tory council tax discount.

The city council is reminding residents who received a letter asking if they would be eligible for the discount to return their details.

The ruling Tories want to introduce a ten per cent council tax discount for over 65-year-old households.

But opposition politicians have questioned the legality of the questionnaire under rules outlawing spending on material for political purposes.

The city's Labour Test MP Alan Whitehead has written to the district auditor asking whether up to £100,000 of tax-payers' cash should have been spent on the letters before the policy has been agreed by the full council as part of the budget for next year.

"You would have to work very hard to justify how £100,000 is being spent in anticipation of a decision that has not been taken and may well not be taken," he said.

In a council motion, Liberal Democrat councillor Steve Sollitt called the spending morally wrong' and warned that it could raise expectations.

Tory councillor Jeremy Moulton, the Cabinet member for finance who approved the letters, has already been quizzed by councillors on the finance scrutiny panel.

He said he had been advised the "data collection exercise" was lawful and accused Mr Whitehead of political mischief to stop the discount.

"It's an excellent policy which will benefit 11,500 or more households, who are on fixed pensioner incomes and who have seen Labour's taxes massively outstrip their pensions over the last ten years," he said.

The council says it needs the information to be prepared to bring in the discount from April.

The letter also asked questions about benefit entitlement to make sure residents were getting all they were entitled to.

A spokesman for the city council said the Cabinet agreed to spend up to £100,000 on preparatory work and data collection for the pension discount following a report in October.

"The report and the letter sent out by the council was carefully considered by the council's chief finance officer and monitoring officer to ensure that any expenditure and action by the council was lawful."