One in every eight divorced or separated fathers in the UK has lost all contact with their children, according to new figures.

The figures show that almost a million men have dependent children with whom they don’t live and of these, almost 130,000 have no contact at all with their children, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The figures come from an analysis of British family life published yesterday by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen).  

According to the report, 97pc of parents with primary caring responsibility for children are mothers.

The report also shows that fathers with new relationships or new families after remarrying are twice as likely to have lost touch with their other children.

The report comes months after a study by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank founded by the Current Secretary for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, warned that a “tsunami of family breakdown” had resulted in over a million children being raised in the UK without a father.

According to CSJ’s report, some of the UK’s most deprived areas were “men deserts” where children grow up without male role models.

The NatCen study, based on survey responses, suggested that its figure of 980,000 men who have dependent children with whom they do not live, was likely to be a substantial underestimate.

Eloise Poole, of NatCen, said the importance of economic factors in parental contact was a cause for concern.

She said: “Some fathers simply don’t have the financial resources, or spare bedrooms, to be able to to maintain regular contact with their children.”