Breathing space father needs to put to good purpose (5)
I believe the answer is:
pause
'breathing space' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'father needs to put to good purpose' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'father' could be 'pa' (pa can mean dad or father) and 'pa' is located in the answer.
'good' could be 'use' (in phrases like 'it's no good', 'any good?' etc) and 'use' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pause that I've seen before include "Temporary cessation" , "Kick" , "Halt briefly" , "Stoppage" , "Stop briefly, take ten" .)