The Government was accused today of driving the “last nail in the coffin” of the traditional family with moves to grant gay couples equal parenting rights.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, spoke out against plans to allow lesbian couples to become joint legal parents of children conceived used donated sperm or eggs. His comments, in an article for the Mail on Sunday, came as the proposals are due to come before the House of Lords in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill on Monday.

The paper claimed that the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu would also speak against the Bill, announced in this month’s Queen’s Speech to the dismay of family campaigners, the newspaper claimed.

Mr Duncan Smith called for Parliament to reject the Bill, saying it would remove the requirement for a father.

“Another nail will have been hammered into the coffin of the traditional family,” he wrote. “And another blow will have been struck against fatherhood.

“This move could not have come at a worse time. Just as we are beginning to appreciate the vital role fathers play in the successful upbringing of children, Labour ministers are sending out the utterly wrong signal that fathers don’t matter.”

Dr Evan Harris MP, he Liberal Democrat science spokesman said: “The research evidence is clear that children do well in lesbian households and when brought up by mature solo women who plan their motherhood, so imposing a requirement on clinics to consider the need for a father in such cases is both unjustified and unlawful discrimination.

“To equate lesbian households with so-called 'broken homes', as Iain Duncan-Smith has done, is as ludicrous as his attack on all unmarried couples and the Conservatives’ bizarre wish to impose fathers on lesbian households suggests that some Tories simply don’t understand anything beyond their own traditional backgrounds.”

Ben Summerskill, the chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, said the Bill would merely extend a right already available to heterosexuals.

“At a time when three million children in this country are growing up in single-parent households, it seems odd there should be this obsession with a few hundred who have an opportunity to have a second loving parent,” he added.

Dr Evan Harris MP, he Liberal Democrat science spokesman said: “The research evidence is clear that children do well in lesbian households and when brought up by mature solo women who plan their motherhood, so imposing a requirement on clinics to consider the need for a father in such cases is both unjustified and unlawful discrimination.

“To equate lesbian households with so-called 'broken homes', as Iain Duncan-Smith has done, is as ludicrous as his attack on all unmarried couples and the Conservatives’ bizarre wish to impose fathers on lesbian households suggests that some Tories simply don’t understand anything beyond their own traditional backgrounds.”

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