My Lords, I join colleagues in the House in congratulating my noble friend Lord Vallance on his maiden speech. I felt after listening to him that this is a Minister who will be happy engaging with Members of this House; we welcome that. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Petitgas, on a lively and fresh contribution. We look forward to many more from him in the months to come. I also look forward to the winding-up speech of my noble friend Lord Livermore. He and I go back a long way, to a time when we were working with Gordon Brown in the early days of the Labour Government in 1997.

I take this opportunity to raise the matter of support to help young people with learning disabilities and autism gain employment; the noble Lords, Lord Shinkwin and Lord Holmes, have already touched on these matters. If we are to meet the Government’s ambition to grow our economy, we can ill afford to ignore the skills and talents of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens who cannot get a job because they have a learning disability.

Seven out of 10 people of working age who have a learning disability are unemployed—denied the opportunity of an independent life and the sense of life-fulfilling achievement that work brings. Businesses across Britain are denied the benefit, enthusiasm, skills and commitment of this group. More than that, helping them find work reduces a cost to the Exchequer.

The Fair Shot café in Covent Garden, which operates a training scheme exclusively employing people with learning disabilities and autism, said in an impact report that its programme had saved the taxpayer £210,000 in benefits.