An MP has said the Government should consider stripping a defence firm of its contract to train the armed forces.

North West Leicestershire MP David Taylor suggested in the House of Commons that a Ministry of Defence (MoD) decision to grant the contract to QinetiQ should be reviewed after the company was criticised in an investigation into an unrelated incident.

QinetiQ was a key part of the team that had looked after the maintenance of Nimrod MR2 spy planes in Afghanistan.

In September 2006, an inquiry was ordered after one of the planes exploded in midair, killing 14 servicemen.

The Haddon Cave Review into the incident said QinetiQ had been "fundamentally lax" in carrying out its role as part of the team.

However, the firm, which was formed after the Government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was privatised in 2002, had already been awarded another defence training contract.

Under the deal, QinetiQ, which Mr Taylor branded an "expensively privatised disaster", and its partner Sodexo will be handed £31m to deliver specialist engineering, communications and information systems training to the MoD.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Taylor said: "Given the Haddon Cave Review's comprehensively damning indictment of QinetiQ's role in passing the fatally flawed Nimrod MR2 into service, will the Secretary of State commit to reviewing the defence training contract?"

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said he would be responding to the findings of the Haddon Cave review before Christmas.