Bradford Council has come under fire from an MP for its "ludicrous" equality monitoring.

Shipley MP Philip Davies slammed the politically correct form filling as a complete waste of money and time.

He contacted the Tory-run council after he was asked to look into problems with street lighting around Broadway in Bingley.

But the Conservative MP was left astounded after, along with a letter saying the matter was being looked at, he received an equality monitoring form asking him to detail his gender, ethnic background and whether or not he had a disability.

He said: "It defies belief these forms are sent out to anyone.

"For a start, it has Mr Philip Davies on it so they could work out my gender. Does what box I tick depend on what response I get? What on earth has my gender or race got to do with my concerns about street lighting?"

Mr Davies replied to the letter outlining he was not outraged because he was sent the letter, but that anyone would be sent such a thing.

Mr Davies received a reply from Council official Allun Preece, principal engineer (Street Lighting) which said the purpose of the questionnaires was to "monitor the improvement schemes that go ahead against requests received."

It reads: "The purpose of the monitoring is to ensure there is no direct or indirect discrimination against any persons, groups, or communities or location and that the schemes are delivered purely upon a needs basis when compared with others."

The letter also said the questionnaire was computer generated and staff would be instructed not to issue letters to third parties requesting lighting improvements.

Mr Davies said the letter had completely missed the point and branded the saga "a complete waste of time and money."

A spokesman said: "Bradford Council has applied for levels 1, 2 and 3 Equality Status, which is a kind of national charter mark to show that we ensure that equality (of race, gender, disability etc.) is promoted in the services we provide.

"We also have to comply with equalities legislation.

"As part of this, we have looked at whether equality issues have any bearing on how our services are delivered/requested.

"We looked at this in a number of our services, including street lighting e.g. were we getting more requests for street lighting from areas where there were higher levels of crime where women were afraid to go out, or in inner city areas?"