The Volkswagen Group’s latest financial results have revealed that the VW brand bore the brunt of the negative effects of dieselgate in H1 of 2016.

While the Volkswagen brand’s 2.2 million vehicle deliveries were only marginally down on the previous year’s 2.3 million, the brand’s first-half operating profit at the VW brand fell more than a third to £758 million.

Volkswagen Group’s shares jumped 6% last week after it said better than anticipated sales of VW-branded cars in the second quarter would push its operating profits, before one-off items, to £6.3 billion.

Today’s published results show that overall operating profit fell from £5.73 billion in the same period during 2015 to £4.46 billion, with the blame being attributed to a £1.8 billion loss of special items, including legal risks.

Group sales revenue of £90.86 billion was only marginally down on last year’s £91.61 billion.

Worldwide, the Group’s registration figures rose 1.2% to 4.79 million thanks largely to gains in Audi (5.6%), Skoda (4.6%) Porsche (7.2%) and a 6.9% rise in the Chinese market, to 1.86 million units.

Frank Witter, the Volkswagen Group's chief financial officer, said: "We produced a solid result in difficult conditions.

"This shows that the Volkswagen Group has high earnings power. But it will require continued hard work to absorb the significant impact from the diesel issue."

Earlier this week it emerged that the owners of Volkswagen Group vehicles in the US were due to get up to £7,500 following an agreement with regulators.

Volkswagen will repair or buy back affected diesel vehicles, paying compensation sums of between $5,000 and $10,000.

The total deal will cost Volkswagen $14.7 billion, $2.7bn of which will be accounted for by investment in a NOx offset program operated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.

Volkswagen will also pay $603m to 44 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to resolve existing and potential state consumer protection claims.