Companies that do not pay their fair share of tax should be banned from government procurement contracts, Scottish Labour deputy leader Anas Sarwar has said.
A series of household names, including internet retail giant Amazon and search engine Google, have faced accusations they do not pay enough tax.
Mr Sarwar suggests that the £10 billion spent by the Scottish public sector every year could be used to disincentivise such behaviour.
In an article in a Scottish Fabians pamphlet, Mr Sarwar argues the money could be used to drive social change as well as economic growth. He writes that rewarding firms which are seen by some as not paying their fair share of tax with such contracts is "political immorality".
Last year Amazon received £2.5m in aid from the Scottish Government.
Mr Sarwar says: "I believe there is strong public support for banning companies involved in avoiding their fair share of tax from accessing public sector contracts, bringing tax justice to public procurement."
He suggests other changes that could be driven by procurement contracts include an extension to the living wage, currently set in Scotland at £7.65 an hour.
The contracts could be used to deliver other government priorities, such as supporting small businesses.
"We have to address the issue of taxpayer-funded contracts being used to perpetuate the practices of low-pay employers," he says. "The above measures cut to the heart of the Labour movement and our political values.
"We don't just believe in building new schools or railways … and we don't just believe in re-balancing tax revenues more fairly … By carrying out these types of government interventions we are supporting people into work, we are driving up living standards, cutting down on wasted talent and giving hope to future generations."
l Public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has demanded greater transparency to tackle a "crisis of confidence" about the Gover-nment's use of private firms to deliver services, and urged more openness in regards to performance and profits.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article