DAVID BLUNKETT could use a law passed under Labour to discover the paternity of his former lover’s son and of her unborn baby.

The Home Secretary is said to want contact rights and to have written to Kimberley Quinn’s solicitors demanding a DNA test on her two-year-old and on the baby expected in January. He is said to be convinced that he is the father of both and to want regular contact and to pay maintenance after the break-up of his affair with Mrs Quinn.

Mrs Quinn, publisher of The Spectator, is said to be equally insistent that her husband, Stephen, the publisher of Vogue in Britain, is the father.

Mr Blunkett would be taking advantage of an amendment to the Family Law Reform Act 1969 contained in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 — passed while he was Education Secretary — that gives courts the power to order paternity tests even when the mother refuses.

It was introduced after Mr Justice Wall ruled in the Family Division of the High Court that two mothers could refuse to allow their children to undergo paternity testing.

The Home Office said yesterday: “The Home Secretary’s private life is his own business and neither he nor anyone who speaks on his behalf have spoken to the media about it. We do not comment on his private life.”

A source close to Mr Blunkett said that he had no intention of commenting on the matter. Jonathan Coad, solicitor to Mrs Quinn, said that she had no comment.

Mr Quinn is named on the birth certificate as the two-year-old’s father.

Yvonne Brown, of the Family Law Association, said yesterday that if the paternity claim gets to court, a judge will decide whether it is in the interests of the child to undergo the test. In most circumstances judges now took the view that it was in a child’s best interests, despite the potential disruption to the family unit, to know who the biological parents were.

She said that it would be unusual for a “putative father” to fail to win a paternity test if he showed himself genuinely to want a parental relationship with the child. It was also in the father’s favour if he could show that his relationship with the mother was more than a one- night stand.

Mr Blunkett met Mrs Quinn at a dinner party in August 2001, two months after her marriage. His contact with William includes taking him and Mrs Quinn on holiday to Corfu this year.

Mr Blunkett broke up with Mrs Quinn when she told him that she wanted to save her relationship with her husband.

The Home Secretary saw Mrs Quinn’s son frequently during their relationship and is said to have become closely attached to him.

Ms Brown said that if the mother refuses to comply with a court order for a paternity test, the court can “draw an adverse inference”.

She said that in balancing the needs of the child, a judge will take into account the damage that could be done to the current family unit and the psychological damage that could be done through not knowing who the real father is.

“Generally speaking the position of the court is that the child should know,” she said.

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