PwC will be handed £44.2m of public cash for a year’s work on the bankruptcy of outsourcing company Carillion, according to official estimates. The news gives ammunition to MPs who have criticised the audit firm’s “licence to print money”.

The insolvency process, one of the most high-profile and complex of recent years, has been scrutinised by MPs during their year-long investigation of Carillion’s collapse in January 2018.