My Lords, I agree. My own father was quite advanced in age when I was born, and when I was 13 I was sent to a boarding school. One of the reasons for that was that my parents believed I needed contact with an older man to be a sort of surrogate father figure. Indeed, my housemaster was kind to me, and I became attached to him. Sadly, he had to move on when I was 15, and that was a very sad experience for me. I was sad about that for several months afterwards, and this Bill has brought it back to the front of my mind.
So, in a way, I have a little experience of what the noble Lord has described: this loss of a father figure. I do not demur from what he has said, but I emphasise that there is a balance to be struck—a difficult balance—between the hell of a child losing contact with a parent, and the hell of a child being caught up in a long-term conflict between parents. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, that we need to approach this on a case-by-case basis and consider the complexities behind each case.
Children and Adoption Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Earl of Listowel
(Crossbench)
in the House of Lords on Monday, 14 November 2005.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Children and Adoption Bill [HL].
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
675 c843 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2024-01-26 17:03:45 +0000
URI
http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_276402
In Indexing
http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_276402
In Solr
https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/pimsdata/hansard/CONTRIBUTION_276402