THE Tories’ Housing Bill would send Britain “back to the Victorian era,” builders’ union Ucatt warned yesterday during its second reading in the Commons.

Opposition MPs said the Bill — aimed at extending right to buy to all 1.3 million housing association tenants — would worsen the housing crisis.

To fund the extension councils will be forced to sell off their most expensive properties as they become vacant, which would let “developers get away with including no social housing” in new projects, Labour MP Andy Slaughter said.

There is “an overall loss” of homes when two social homes are lost to build just one, Green MP Caroline Lucas told Communities Secretary Greg Clark after he promised homes will be replaced “like for like.”

He claimed it is a policy “the country voted for.”

Households earning a pre-tax total of £30,000 — £40,000 in London — would also be forced to pay higher rents to stay in their council or housing association homes, with the surplus siphoned off to the Treasury.

Mr Clark said it was “fair” that those on “reasonable” salaries should shoulder the burden of making up the national deficit.

Property developers will also no longer be obliged to build social housing as part of the deal for the general market — instead letting them build “affordable” housing, the threshold for which starts at £450,000.

Shadow housing minister John Healey slammed the Tories for “putting all their chips on starter homes” rather than building truly affordable housing.

Ucatt acting general secretary Brian Rye said: “This egregious Tory government will once again throw the poor people of Britain into the arms of the slum landlord.”

He pointed to research showing that almost 5,500 social and affordable homes will be sold off in London, while over 21,000 fewer affordable homes will be built — “the poor will have been moved out to make way for Tory property speculators.”

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