ANAS Sarwar was paid a £5000 one-off fee from his family business to help identify charities that might benefit from donations, it has emerged.

A blog post by the millionaire candidate for the Scottish Labour leadership revealed that he had relinquished all his shares in United Wholesale (Scotland) on Friday afternoon and was paid a consultancy fee in 2015 "to assist in identifying and distributing charitable donations to international aid organisations and local charities and community groups – including the Ucare Foundation and Second Chance Project".

It comes after The Herald reported that the Sarwar family firm had failed to pay all its staff the ‘real’ living wage.

The firm does however pay all its workers the national living wage as set by the government, which currently stands at £7.50-an-hour.

On Friday, Mr Sarwar admitted receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds in unearned income from his family business following a Herald investigation.

He received dividends of about £20,000 a year for 13 years as a shareholder in United Wholesale (Scotland) Ltd. (UWS)

Over the weekend, Mr Sarwar, regarded as a centrist candidate, divested himself of £4.8 million in shares in UWS.

He said he had taken the dramatic step to "demonstrate his commitment to public service".

Last night, a blog post by his campaign team – entitled 'Get The Facts Right' – railed against "politically-motivated headlines" and suggested the SNP was behind the reports into Mr Sarwar's links to his family firm.

In an introduction to a 'fact-check' memo, the post said: "In recent days, the SNP – aided and abetted by its friends in the media – has resorted to politicised attacks on Anas Sarwar."

It went onto reiterate that Mr Sarwar plays no active role in the running of the company and never has.

The Glasgow MSP is standing against Richard Leonard in the Labour leadership contest, which was sparked by Kezia Dugdale's resignation last month.

On Saturday, it emerged that Labour's biggest donor, Unite, looked set to guarantee the Scottish party leadership to left-winger Richard Leonard after persuading more than 5,000 of its members to vote in the contest.

Last week, Unite came out in support of Mr Leonard, a former senior trade union organiser, who is closely aligned to Jeremy Corbyn. Four other large unions have done likewise and Unison is expected to follow suit later this week.

It is claimed that Unite has been able to mobilise non-Labour Party members, who pay the union's political levy, which entitles them to cast a vote.

Given that last year fewer than 13,000 Scottish fully paid-up members voted in the leadership contest between Mr Corbyn and Owen Smith, then it is thought the recruitment of a large number of affiliated supporters could swing the vote in Mr Leonard’s favour.

One leading supporter of Mr Sarward told The Sunday Times: "All sorts of skulduggery is going on to recruit new members and supporters in this election. They are presenting Leonard as the ethical candidate yet behind the scenes they are up to all sorts of tricks."