Patten opens a fresh attack on 'time bomb' divorce Bill

John Patten, the former Secretary of State for Education, opened his assault on the divorce Bill yesterday, warning his erstwhile Cabinet colleagues they were "priming a terrible moral and social time bomb".

Predicting that the legislation would lead to still more divorces in Britain, Mr Patten said Tories should judge the Family Law Bill against their boast to be the party of the family. In his Cabinet days, Mr Patten, a Roman Catholic, joined John Redwood, then Secretary of State for Wales, in opposing the Lord Chancellor's proposals which end "quickie" divorces, but also the need to prove fault.

Both men are now able to campaign without the inhibitions of office, though the Bill has first to get through the Lords, where it is due for its Second Reading debate next Thursday. "Friendly fire along these benches is always to be decried," Mr Patten said during the continuing debate on the Queen's Speech - then pulled the trigger. For a Tory government to introduce a Bill for which there was no popular demand in the run-up to an election was "eccentric".

Blaming the Bill on the political correctness of the Law Commission, he said that every time the Commons had legislated on divorce since the Second World War, there had been an upsurge. It was perceived that divorce was being made easier and that the state backed marriage less and less.

"It is an empirical certainty that if we legislate again, there will be another surge in the number of divorces. That certainty will be compounded by the introduction for the first time of true 'no-fault' divorce on demand", Mr Patten claimed. The effect could be to turn Britain "from the divorce capital of Europe, which we are now, to the divorce capital of the world".

Government plans to give vouchers to the parents of all four-year-olds to buy nursery school places came under fire from both sides of the Commons during the debate.

Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education, spurned an offer from her Labour shadow, David Blunkett, for a bipartisan approach to nursery education. But the most awkward contributions came from the benches behind her.

Iain Mills, Tory MP for Meriden, said at least 42 local authorities would "suffer" from the voucher scheme, although they were already providing "excellent" nursery education. Council schools will have to compete with private sector nurseries to get back money they are currently allocated for four-year-olds.

Sir Malcolm Thornton, Tory chairman of the Education Select Committee, said the pounds 5m pilot scheme must be just that, and if it did not work, Mrs Shephard should have to courage to say so. His Tory colleague George Walden complained that the "spatchcock" vouchers plan risked entrenching the state-private split at the earliest age. "That seems a pretty bleak educational future," said the former education minister.

Mr Blunkett urged Mrs Shephard to join with him, the Pre-school Learning Alliance, the private sector and LEAs to work out a way of providing a nursery place for every four-year-old.

The vouchers scheme also came under attack in the Lords, where the Bishop of Ripon, the Rt Rev David Young, warned it could lead to the demise of small village schools in remote rural areas like his in North Yorkshire.