Home secretary Jacqui Smith has outlined tougher powers for police allowing them to confiscate alcohol from under-18s as part of measures to tackle street drinking.

The minister said young people should not be drinking alcohol in the street and indicated that she is willing to examine whether police should be given greater powers to tackle the problem.

She said she wanted to look at the confiscation laws to see whether or not they were working properly.

“If young people should not be drinking it, I do not think they should be possessing it on the streets either,” she told BBC Breakfast.

“I want to look at whether or not we should tighten up the possession of alcohol for young people in public under the age of 18.”

The home secretary’s pledge follows a public outcry as a result of the murder of 47-year-old Garry Newlove outside his Warrington home last August after he confronted a gang of drunken teenagers about acts of vandalism.