Membership of a gang could add extra years to jail terms for violent knife and gun crime, under a review of policies to tackle the growth of firearms on the streets.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced the plans after hearing that younger teenagers were now using guns and that Britain was in danger of producing a generation of urban “child soldiers”. The stark warnings from police about the trend towards younger people turning to firearms to settle trivial disputes came at a gun-crime summit at 10 Downing Street yesterday.

Police in London have been told by community leaders that children as young as 8 and 9 are being used to carry and hide guns for teenagers. In Manchester teenagers aged 13 and 14 are wearing body armour.

Mr Reid promised that ministers would clarify whether a five-year minimum jail term could be handed to those aged 18 to 21 for possessing firearms. He also pledged a wider-ranging review of sentencing for firearms offences, though a number of community leaders said that more criminal justice measures were not the answer.

Tony Blair told the meeting, called after the murder of Billy Cox, 15, in Clapham, South London, that new legislation would be part of the solution to gun crime. The Prime Minister said he recognised there had to be a wide range of efforts in the community, but added that the failure to toughen laws could send out a message of complacency.

But there was little agreement among the 25 people at the summit that new legislation would help. The Rev Nims Obunge, of the church group Peace Alliance, said: “We may be raising urban child soldiers. We will come out of this conference making statements on legislation, how you are going to crack down, but not support these young people.”

Senior police officers from London and Manchester gave warning that the perpetrators and victims of gun crime were becoming younger.

Mike Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, said: “We have got 14 and 15-year-old kids walking around in body armour. And we have 13-year-olds where, when we do house searches, we find Section 1 firearms in their houses because they are being used to hold them.”

Cressida Dick, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that younger people were becoming more involved in more casual violence, and were readier to use firearms in trivial circumstances. The violence, she said, was chaotic, impulsive and involved a great deal of revenge, reprisal and retribution.

Mr Reid will now consult the Sentencing Guidelines Council on making membership of a gang an aggravating factor in sentencing for violent crime. The difficulty will be to produce evidence confirming that a person is a gang member, especially as many gangs are fluid in their membership.

As part of his pledge to review current laws, Mr Reid said he would also examine legislation on the supply of firearms and confirmed other plans to bring forward existing measures to make it illegal to “mind” a firearm for someone else.

The Home Secretary said he would also “lay an order or any orders that are necessary” to make sure that a minimum sentence for a gun offence “truly is a minimum sentence”, even for those aged 18 to 21. Although a five-year minimum was introduced in 2004, the Court of Appeal found last March that because of a clash with separate legislation it could not be applied to those aged under 21.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, visited Manchester yesterday to talk about gun culture and to emphasise his party’s “bottom-up” approach to young “hoodies”. But as he strolled through an estate in Wythenshawe, Mr Cameron found himself mocked by a hoody pretending to fire a gun at him.

“Let’s try to understand what has gone wrong with these young people,” Mr Cameron famously said last year — an approach labelled “hug a hoody”. Yesterday he accused Labour of a “top-down” approach to guns. Tougher laws were not enough, he said. “We have got to get to the roots of crime. That means families and communities.”

Street costs

£4,000 Sterling sub-machinegun

£150 Full clip for a converted 9mm handgun

£50 Set of ammunition for a .385 Magnum

£50 Shotgun

£1,000 New semi-automatic handgun

Source: Home Office

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