Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
Diesel ‘to hit £2 a litre within weeks’
Diesel will hit £2 a litre in the coming weeks as oil prices spiral, a leading energy trader has warned.
Greg Newman, the founder and chief executive of Onyx Capital, a major London-based trader in oil and energy derivatives, said he was “very confident the diesel price will surpass £2 a litre in the next month”.
It would mean filling the typical 55-litre fuel tank will cost £110, up from £78 before the war.
That would be up from £1.42 before the war began at the end of February, and would take diesel above the £1.99 highs reached at the worst moments of the 2022 energy price crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine.
ScotRail to replace high speed trains with £80m refurbished fleet
ScotRail has announced the replacement of its old intercity high speed trains (HSTs) with 22 newly refurbished trains.
The Class 222s currently run on East Midlands Railway, but will have an £80m exterior and interior revamp before being handed over.
The refreshed Class 222s will run on ScotRail routes between Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness in a phased roll-out from late next year.
Government borrowing higher than expected in February
UK government borrowing rose unexpectedly to £14.3billion in February to the second highest level for that month since records began, official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said an increase in government tax receipts was outweighed by a rise in spending, including from debt interest payments. Economists had expected borrowing to be £8.8bilion in February.
The figure, which measures the difference between total public sector spending and tax income, is for the month before the start of the US-Israel war with Iran.
Nearly 400 firms fined over failure to pay minimum wage
Nearly 400 employers have been told to repay more than £7.3million to around 60,000 workers who were not paid the correct minimum wage.
The official minimum rates of pay will rise for 2.7 million workers in April 2026.
The rate for workers aged 21 and over is called the National Living Wage, while those aged 18 to 20 are paid the National Minimum Wage.