A VERY brief broom cupboard liaison is said to have cost the now bankrupt Boris Becker a £2m lump sum and £25,000-a-month in maintenance while his resulting daughter is growing up.

Our progressive system for calculating paternal financial liability follows from a policy decision taken personally by Margaret Thatcher. This was not her gesture of sympathy towards promiscuous women. It was a deliberate act of deterrence and punishment for wayward men.

This may seem to be of no concern to women or to the great majority of men, who are either less rich or less impulsive than Mr Becker.

But consider the proportion of children who receive a contribution from their father of zilch or little more.

The lack of competition for biological fatherhood is causing real hardship, not to mention increased cost to the taxpayer.

This could be addressed by allowing men to set a limit of liability for future paternity claims against them. We need only ensure this limit is above the level of support which the woman would have received from a plausible alternative father of her child.

John Riseley, Harrogate