The Government is set to net around a further £250million from the hugely controversial sell-off of the defence research and technology business QinetiQ.

The £1billion flotation of QinetiQ by the Ministry of Defence in early 2006 bagged the taxpayer nearly £300million when the shares were sold to the City at 200p each.

Today the MoD said it is selling its residual 125million shareholding representing just shy of 19% of the group.

With City brokers continuing to cast around for buyers, word was the shares are likely to get away at around 205p each, a discount to last night's close of 2231/2p, a near all-time high.

The original flotation, Labour's first major privatisation, of what was then the research arm of the MoD caused a huge stink.

The MoD was accused of being "like an innocent at a table of card sharps" by a subsequent investigation by MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee.

The MPs said the Ministry had failed to extract proper value from the float of QinetiQ by, two years previously, selling a one-third stake to US private-equity house Carlyle Group for just £42million.

The MPs also attacked the huge windfalls for QinetiQ's top brass who trousered shares worth £100million, notably chairman Sir John Chisholm with £26million and chief executive Graham Love with £21million.

Chisholm was singled out by MPs for acting "dishonourably" over the sale by not disclosing how a float would financially benefit him.

The float also sparked big windfalls for advisers and consultants with fees topping £100million.

Credit Suisse, which was on the end of much of the criticism in 2006 and was subsequently ditched as an adviser by QinetiQ, was back leading the sale of shares for the MoD today.

It was leading an accelerated bookbuild with JPMorgan Cazenove and Merrill Lynch, who also worked on the original float.