The question of whether firms should pay dividends before handing back furlough money has resurfaced after BDP’s accounts revealed it is giving £16m to its Japanese parent – while hanging onto more than £2m of government cash.

The country’s second-biggest architect, which worked on a series of Nightingale hospitals during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic last spring, said in its latest accounts that it had paid Nippon Koei an £8m dividend during its last financial year, covering the 12 months to June 2021.

And it said it would be paying the firm, which bought BDP five years ago for just over £100m, another £8m dividend in a move rubber-stamped at a BDP board meeting in October.

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