THE Housing and Planning Bill had its second reading in Parliament on the same day as the Trade Union Bill.

They are both part of a co-ordinated Tory attack on the welfare state and the trade union power that was decisive in winning the NHS, free education, social security benefits and council housing.

Council housing has been a government target for decades. Now Cameron and co want to fulfil their dream of housing fully privatised and subject to the ups and downs of speculative property investment.

There are four key elements to the Bill. First, private developers will be able to make even more profit by building homes for sale instead of social rent on new sites.

Second, invoking the ghost of Thatcherism, the right to buy is being revived and extended to housing association tenants.

Third, councils will be obliged to sell off vacant “high-value” homes to subsidise the enforced right to buy subsidies to be paid by housing associations.

Fourth, council and housing association tenants with household income above £30,000 (£40,000 in London) will be forced onto “full or near” market rents.

At the same time, the housing rights of travellers will be substantially weakened, and only token measures introduced to protect private tenants. The Bill is a threat to all non-market housing and our communities.

The right to buy has done enormous damage to councils’ ability to meet housing need.

Two million homes have been sold and not replaced — equalled by the number of households currently on waiting lists.

Extending right to buy to housing associations undermines future attempts to build homes for those people. It is also part of a hypocritical ideological assault.

Successive governments have falsely denigrated council housing and tenants as “scroungers” in homes that rely on public subsidies.

In fact, the most subsidised tenure is owner occupation, and private landlords get $10 billion a year in housing benefit. Council rents cover all the costs of building, management and maintenance.

They are not “subsidised” but all too often siphoned off to subsidise other government projects.

Now the Tories want to take this a step further, with councils subsidising housing associations.

I manage a council estate in Islington where we have about three empty homes a year.

If the Bill goes through, instead of housing some of the 18,000 people on the waiting list, they’ll all be sold, probably to corporate investors.

The money will go to housing associations, private organisations with joint surpluses of £135bn, some of which have made it clear they no longer want to provide social housing.

The government also wants to introduce means testing to council and housing associations.

So-called “pay to stay” will require tenants to declare their income — their rent could double or treble if it’s over the limit.

On the estate where I work, a couple earning not much more than the minimum wage between them face their rent rising from £152.60 to £644.50 a week.

They’ve lived in their home for 30 years, so have already paid about £100,000 in rent. They’re not being subsidised. Council housing pays for itself and not just in cash terms. Introducing market rents will compel many to leave or buy their home — exactly what the Tories want.

But this will further reduce the supply of genuinely affordable homes for rent and push more working-class people out of their neighbourhoods. For some it will mean that finding a job or winning a pay rise isn’t worth it.

For decades, private developers have been allowed to run amok. They get away with producing the minimum possible amount of “affordable” housing, often while benefiting from public land and subsidy.

The Housing Bill gives them even more room on the gravy train. It will allow them to build publicly subsidised “starter homes” which will benefit a few on above-average incomes, while making things harder for the millions stuck in rip-off private renting and in housing need.

I used to work in the development industry and I’ll share a couple of trade secrets.

One: property developers tell lies. They claim building affordable homes is “unviable” while making massive profits. Two: they don’t want to solve the housing crisis. They like scarcity because it pushes up demand and prices.

Housing is an urgent problem and this Bill will make it worse. This isn’t a fight we can postpone, whatever some shadow ministers say.

This government is harsh but its grip is frail, as the tax credit backdown shows.

By linking forces, tenants, trade unions, councillors and MPs can galvanise the community campaigns, workplace and political resistance we need to expose and defeat them on housing.

This is the alliance that won rent control and council housing. Join us on December 12 to organise the broad campaign we need to defeat the government and win homes for need not greed.

• Join the campaign planning meeting to defeat the Housing Bill on December 12 from 11am-2pm at Unite HQ, 129 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8TN.