WATCH: Secretary of State Liz Kendall taps into apprentice engineering skills at Peterborough College ahead of major employment overhaul

Work and Pensions boss Liz Kendall won praise for her engineering skills during a tour of apprentice training at Peterborough College ahead of her announcing a £240 million reform to national employment support.

The Secretary of State tried her hand at dot punching under the watchful eye of engineering apprentice Megan Kistruck (20) of Orton, who jokingly told her she was very good and ‘we might employ you.’

The light-hearted moment came during Ms Kendall’s four hour visit to the college, in Park Crescent, at which she spoke to an array of training providers and apprentices from some of Peterborough’s leading companies.

She later sat down with them all for a ‘round table’ discussion about the Government’s plans to improve apprenticeships and to reduce the number of young people who are not working because of ill health.

Ms Kendall was visiting Peterborough – a recognised unemployment hot spot – ahead of the launch today (November 26) of her Get Britain Working Again White Paper.

She is also expected to announce Cambridgeshire and Peterborough as a youth trailblazer with a significant sum of money to be earmarked to enhance the efforts of the Combined Authority to get young people into work.

The White Paper outlines a number of measures to Get Britain Working, including tackling ill health as the biggest driver of inactivity, empowering mayors and councils to join up local work, health and skills support in ways that meet the specific needs of their areas.

It will also deliver a new Youth Guarantee so every young person has access to education or training to help them find a job and transforming the Apprenticeship Levy in England into a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy backed by £40 million to expand opportunities for young people to develop skills and get into work.

An independent review will also be launched into how employers can be better supported to employ people with disabilities health conditions, and to keep them in the workplace and the government will also seek to overhaul the health and disability benefits system so it provides better support for people to enter and remain in work and to tackle the spiralling benefits bill.

Afterwards, Ms Kendall said: “Peterborough is a hotspot for youth unemployment with 1,350 young people claiming Universal Credit, most of those will be unemployed and we really want to make sure we tackle that and give those young people the skills they need to get well paid jobs of the future.

"The college is working really hard here as the local MP and mayor and we want to make sure there is more local control because we think local people know best what people in Peterborough need.

"I’ve come to Peterborough to see the fantastic work the college is doing on apprenticeships.

"It is giving young people a real start in life with proper skills and proper job prospects for the future and we want to see much more of this.”