Minister: I struggled to cope after my father walked out

Tottenham MP David Lammy today told of feeling "personally betrayed" by his father who walked out on his family.

The higher education minister urged fathers from all sections of society to do more for their children.

Speaking after Mothering Sunday, he stressed that many women wanted "more engaged fathers".

"Aged 11, I watched my father walk out on my mother and away from his responsibilities," he said in a speech to the Runnymede Trust.

"My mother was left with the enormous, lonely, frightening responsibility of looking after four children on her own.

"While she toiled, I struggled to cope with what felt like a personal betrayal."

He had always looked up to his father but then found himself having to seek advice from others to get through teenage life, including on how to shave and deal with peer pressure.

Children from fatherless homes were more likely to grow up in poverty, he added, highlighting his worries over figures showing that six out of 10 black Caribbean children and 44 per cent of Black African children grow up in single parent households.

After leaving the family home in the mid-Eighties, Mr Lammy's father later left the country. The Tottenham-born MP, 37, who is married with two sons, emphasised that children were also being let down by fathers who failed to build strong relationships with them.

"Where parents are together, a culture of long working hours can do damage," he said.

"More than four in 10 men say they don't spend enough time with their children. This applies as much to the stressed executive as the overworked plumber."

Fathers who spent time with their children were often not "engaged", he added, emphasising research showing that only one in 10 children would go first to their fathers for advice.

Teenagers also needed to understand that it was unacceptable to become a "baby father" through casual sex.

Mr Lammy highlighted calls for paid paternity leave to match paid maternity leave and to change Britain's long working hours culture to make it easier for fathers to build bonds with their children.