What progress has been made in providing employment opportunities for (a) young people and (b) disabled people since 1997.

Our new deal programme is playing a significant role in achieving record levels of employment. It has helped virtually to eradicate long-term youth unemployment and has reduced long-term adult unemployment to its lowest level for 30 years. Through the new deal, more than 550,000 young people and nearly 200,000 disabled people have been helped into work. For the first time, more than half of all disabled people of working age are in work.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. I pay tribute to all the work done by successive Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions. I pay tribute, too, to the staff of Jobcentre Plus in Bridgend for all the work that they are doing. Does my right hon. Friend have any information about the success of schemes in my constituency or Bridgend county borough to cheer me on in my retirement?

We will all miss my hon. Friend; he has been a terrific Member of Parliament and a great advocate for his constituency. I can send him into retirement blissfully happy with the following statistics about his constituency: youth claimant unemployment is down by 27 per cent.; long-term youth unemployment is down by 81 per cent.; unemployment is down by 41 per cent.; and long-term unemployment is down by 82 per cent. The number of people coming into work from pathways to work is already 10 per cent. higher than it was before the scheme was introduced. That is good news from my hon. Friend's constituency and a great valediction of all that he has been doing over the years.

I ask a very difficult question of the Secretary of State, but it is to solicit information. Does he accept that colitis is a disability, and would it not make it a lot easier for somebody with colitis to lead a meaningful life, undertake work and be able to take advantage of job opportunities if they were eligible for the blue badge scheme? If he cannot give me an answer today, will he write to me, because this is critical for one of my constituents?

I shall try to be helpful. First, are people who have colitis disabled? Yes. Secondly, are they able to get the blue badge? I am advised by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend Maria Eagle, who knows much more about these things than I do, that some of them are. I will write to the hon. Gentleman to give him chapter and verse and perhaps to enter a dialogue about how we can resolve any problems that his constituents are experiencing.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that most organisations of and for disabled people recognise the tremendous progress that the Government have made in encouraging employment for disabled people? Will he now focus on how people with learning disabilities—I speak as the co-chairman of the all-party group—can achieve their full potential by continuing to work to give them the same opportunities?

I accept that my right hon. Friend has accurately expressed the views of the disability lobby. I accept also that there is more work that we can do for people with learning disabilities. Coincidentally, I have a meeting in my Department at 5 pm tonight to begin a cross-ministerial and cross-Government project to see what we can do about that and other issues.

Further to that answer, is the Secretary of State aware of the cruel anomaly affecting people with learning disabilities? If they take advantage of non-means-tested benefits such as incapacity benefit and disability living allowance, they find themselves obliged to pay prohibitive fees to do basic skills courses under the supported learning programme. Will he talk to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills about resolving that failure of joined-up government?

I might not describe it as a failure of joined-up government, but I do accept that there is a problem and that there is more that we can do about the particular problems faced by people in the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes. Yes, it is an issue that needs to be resolved. With continuing investment in the new deal, and as we build on the new deal and some other projects that the Chancellor announced in the Budget report, we can move matters on. The hon. Gentleman has a valid point, which we will take into consideration, and which we are, indeed, working on at the moment.

Is there such a thing as the sick-note culture, and to what extent are doctors complicit in encouraging people to think that they cannot work when they can?

I do think that there is such a thing as the sick-note culture. It stems, perhaps, from a cultural issue, as my colleagues at the Department of Health recognised in the White Paper that they published quite recently on public health. Too often, the medical profession has seen itself as needing to protect people from work, whereas, given some of the illnesses that doctors are dealing with, the people who have them would benefit far more from being at work. How do we resolve that problem? We certainly do not do so by Government diktat. We need to work with the profession, as we are, to find ways to solve the problem. We perhaps need to begin by auditing sick notes; prescriptions are audited, but no one has any information on how many sick notes are issued, when or what for. A sea change is happening, however, that unites the Department of Health, health professionals, the disability lobby, the Department for Work and Pensions and, I hope, people on both sides of the House. The way people used to be treated, particularly those with mental illnesses such as depression, really was not in their best interests.

Does the Secretary of State recognise that if he really wants to promote more job opportunities for young people and to do something about the 1 million young people who have simply disappeared off the register and who are not on the new deal, in work, in training or in education, he must talk to his fellow Ministers about stemming the tide of bureaucracy, paperwork and regulations that actively discourage many employers—[Interruption.] If Labour Members ever talked to employers, they would already know all this. All of that stops employers offering meaningful job opportunities to young people.

I do not agree that that problem is created by bureaucracy being forced on employers. What we have tried to do with the new deal and, in particular, with pathways to work is to work with employers to find ways to ensure that they can take advantage of them. There is an economic case for employers as well a social case: they need to find areas of recruitment, and recruiting people who are on incapacity benefit, for instance, is a good way to do that. Some problems about bureaucracy may be raised with us, and we will seek to tackle them, but it has never been put to me by employers as the major reason why they will not employ disabled people. Incidentally, I do not agree with the hon. Lady's figure for those who are not in education, employment or training, but we may have another opportunity to raise that before half-past 3.