The government is to announce this week that it will press ahead with a ban on the manufacture, import and sale of "realistic" replica and imitation guns a year after the Home Office said a blanket ban was unworkable and impractical.

The ban will not be as wide-ranging as gun control campaigners had been pressing for but it will be accompanied by a measure making it illegal for anybody under the age of 18 to buy any kind of imitation or replica firearm.