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Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

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.