Llew Smith, the Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, will today complain to the speaker of the House of Commons about a Ministry of Defence "cover up".

He is angered by the offer of nearly £100 million in financial inducements to push through the part-privatisation of the defence research agency QinetiQ to the Carlyle Group.

Smith believes that the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, deliberately slipped out details of the concessions in documents placed in the Commons library at the start of the Christmas recess.

The Carlyle Group is a US firm whose European chairman is former prime minister John Major.