ANAS Sarwar is facing more questions over his family business after a Herald investigation cast doubt on his claim not to take any dividend income from the company or help run it.

On Wednesday, the Scottish Labour leadership candidate flatly denied receiving any dividend income from his 23 per cent stake in United Whole (Scotland) Ltd.

He told Radio Scotland: “I don’t take a dividend, no.”

Asked whether he made “any money from this company at all”, he replied: “I don’t take remuneration from the company.”

However, according to UWS records filed at Companies House, Mr Sarwar was entitled to £333,000 of dividend income between 2003 and 2015, based on his shareholdings.

His wife Furheen was entitled to a further £196,000 based on her shareholdings.

In total, the couple were entitled to almost £530,000 up to December 2015, although the figure could now be closer to £600,000 as the 2016 accounts have not yet been filed.

The company records also appear to contradict Mr Sarwar’s repeated assertion that he plays no part in the running of UWS, despite being one of the largest shareholders.

In a statement earlier this month, he said: “I am a minority shareholder [in UWS], not a director, and play no active part in the running of the company – and never have.”

He also told Radio Scotland this week: “I have no role in the company… I have no say in how the company operates.”

However in December 2010, Mr Sarwar signed a company resolution creating a new class of share which ultimately benefited his wife and his sister-in-law.

The SNP called on Mr Sarwar to clarify the apparent contradictions immediately.

MSP Clare Haughey said: “The more Anas Sarwar tries to dodge and deflect, the more questions he has to answer over his business dealings. He’s an elected politician – he needs to come clean and face up to scrutiny.

“The continuing embarrassed silence from Mr Sarwar speaks volumes. Just how much has he profited while staff employed by the family firm have received poverty wages?”

Mr Sarwar, 34, a Glasgow list MSP and former MP, is the centrist candidate for the Scottish Labour leadership, pitted against left-wing MSP Richard Leonard, a former GMB official.

Mr Sarwar is already facing criticism over pay and employment practices at UWS, which was set up his father, the former Labour MP Mohammad Sarwar.

The cash and carry giant pays some staff below the £8.45 an hour real living wage promoted by Labour, and there is no formal trade union recognition in place for its 250 workers.

Mr Sarwar said last week that no union had ever asked to set up a collective pay bargaining unit since the firm was established 16 years ago.

UWS annual accounts declare the business distributed £2m in dividends to its shareholders - all Sarwar family members - between 2003 and 2015.

Almost £1.6m of this was based on shares of the kind owned by Mr Sarwar.

The firm’s paperwork stated dividends were “based on the number of shares held”.

Based on the shares Mr Sarwar held each year over this period, he would have been entitled to dividends of around £333,000.

In addition, on 24 December 2010, Mr Sarwar was a signatory to a UWS resolution, also lodged at Companies House, that created a new class of share, called a B share.

These were created by reclassifying 100 of the 3011 shares belonging to Mr Sarwar and 100 of those belonging to his brother Asim, a director of UWS.

These B shares were then transferred to the men’s wives, Furheen and Henna.

In 2015, more B shares were created for Sharon Sarwar, the wife of a third brother, Athif.

From 2010 to 2015, UWS declared it paid out £427,000 in dividends in respect of these B shares, of which £195,667 was due to Mr Sarwar’s wife Furheen, based on the size of her shareholding.

Mr Sarwar’s shares are estimated to be worth up to £4.8m.

The disclosures add to the pressure on the Glasgow MSP to cut his links to UWS.

Mr Sarwar is also facing criticism for sending his two young sons to £10,000-a-year Hutchesons’ Grammar rather than a state primary.

He has denied being one of the “few” in Labour’s slogan “for the many, not the few”.

Besides his financial and domestic circumstances, Mr Sarwar has also been criticised for last year signing an open letter calling on Jeremy Corbyn to consider his position.

At the party’s first leadership hustings on Wednesday, Mr Leonard pointedly attacked those who had turned on the UK Labour leader, accusing them of sowing “disunity”.

A spokesman for Mr Sarwar said the MSP did not currently take a dividend, but did not say whether he had taken it in the past.

He said: “Anas Sarwar does not take a dividend from UWS. He is a minority shareholder, he has no role in the running of the company and no desperate attempt by the SNP to smear him will deter him from fighting to remove this failing government from office.”