The army will help tackle knife crime by using its experience of training young people in need of inspiration and purpose, the defence secretary has revealed.

Penny Mordaunt said the Ministry of Defence will hold a summit in support of a wider government effort to counter serious violence.

“At a time of rising knife crime and prevalent gang culture in some parts of the UK, the Army’s ethos can make a real difference to young people. It can offer hope,” she said in a speech at an annual army conference on Tuesday.

The announcement was interpreted by some in the audience as a bid by Ms Mordaunt to broaden her appeal beyond defence ahead of a possible decision to join the Tory leadership race.

The cabinet minister avoided a question on whether she was planning to run, saying she wanted the focus to be on this week’s upcoming D-Day commemorations, which formed part of her speech.

Ms Mordaunt also touched on the fate of Islamic State foreign fighters from the UK and in particular their children who are detained in camps in Syria.

She called the children “innocents” and said the UK had an obligation to them.

On knife crime, the defence secretary said she wants the army to do more to help the government’s “social mobility agenda”.

The proposed summit would connect Military Preparation colleges – places of education that offer 16 to 23 year olds the chance to learn new skills and improve their fitness – with groups working to divert young people away from gangs and violence.

“Defence has so much to offer, in our armed forces and our cadet units, but also in the fantastic organisations that sit in our communities alongside us,” she said.

“I have been so struck in particular how Military Preparation colleges have enthused those who other education establishments fail to inspire.

“They have encouraged study and physical fitness, self-confidence and self-worth, a sense of duty and service.

“And they have given some youngsters options where they had none.

“I believe it is time to use the skills and lesson learned at these colleges and elsewhere in the army to address this national blight of gangs and weapons on our streets.”

Asked by a journalist about the challenge of dealing with IS foreign fighters in Syria, Ms Mordaunt said in her previous job as international development secretary she had been concerned about the children who had been forced to travel with their parents to the country or born out there.

“Quite a lot of the children are hidden, they are given different identities, and I think that the British public will absolutely agree that we do not want to do anything that makes this country less safe but I think also we have an obligation to innocents who were taken into a war zone and may be hidden there,” the cabinet minister said.

She conceded, however, that extracting the children would need the consent of their parents.

Ms Mordaunt said a solution needed to be found with the international community on what to do with the hundreds of foreign fighters who have been detained.

To “create a situation where they disappeared, whether they went back, whether they moved to other nations, even nations very far away, that that would be a dereliction of duty”, she said, adding that this issue is a focus of the UK’s National Security Council.

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