First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hit out at one of the candidates vying to become Scottish Labour's next leader, claiming there is a "gulf as wide as the Clyde" between what Anas Sarwar says and his actions.
The SNP leader mounted an attack on the MSP for Glasgow following claims that a family firm fails to pay all its workers the living wage.
At a Labour leadership hustings in Glasgow on Wednesday night, Mr Sarwar said he believed the living wage - currently set at £8.45 an hour in Scotland - should be compulsory.
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But he came under fire after reports that the family firm he has a stake in, United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd, was advertising positions at the rate of £7.50 an hour.
As Labour's interim Scottish leader Alex Rowley accused Ms Sturgeon's government of siding with "the millionaires rather than the millions" on tax decisions, SNP MSPs in Holyrood pointed at Mr Sarwar.
Ms Sturgeon said: "I thought it was really unfair of Alex Rowley to personalise this debate by bringing Anas Sarwar into it.
"The problem here, as Anas Sarwar so clearly illustrates, is there is a massive gulf - a gulf as wide as the Clyde - between what Labour says and what Labour does.
"We have a Labour leadership candidate lecturing others about doing the right thing on pay and yet his own family firm won't pay the living wage voluntarily.
"So Labour should get its own house in order."
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The comments prompted Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh to remind MSPs to "try and refrain from personal attacks in this chamber".
Ms Sturgeon spoke out after Mr Rowley pressed the SNP leader on "unacceptable" levels of child poverty during First Minister's Questions, calling on her to "finally accept in order to help the poorest in this country you've got to be prepared to look at taxing the richest in this country".
The SNP leader said that when local authorities were this year given the power to raise council tax in their budgets, it was only Labour authorities that had decided against this.
She hit out: "Labour really needs to close that gulf between what they say and what they lecture others and what they actually do themselves."
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Mr Sarwar, Labour's Holyrood health spokesman, is up against left wing MSP Richard Leonard in the contest to succeed Kezia Dugdale, who quit the top job last month.
The results of the leadership election will be announced on November 18.
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