Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
Trump envoy Kushner arrives in Israel after rare Hamas talks on Gaza peace plan
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jared Kushner has arrived in Israel, where he is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It comes after Kushner held rare talks with Hamas to discuss the implementation of the US-backed Gaza peace plan.
Last month, Trump's Board of Peace said it had reached agreement for the "complete disarmament" of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. Last week, Israel rejected Trump's 15-point plan, which also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw and for Gaza to be rebuilt under a new civilian Palestinian administration.
Read more from the BBC.
Robert Jenrick: Reform UK would ban foreigners from claiming benefits
More than one million foreigners living in Britain would be banned from claiming almost all benefits under a Reform UK government.
Robert Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesman, said the move would contribute to wider plans to save more than £50 billion in welfare spending to tackle an “immoral” situation.
The ban would cover European Union citizens with settled status, which would require a renegotiation of the Brexit deal with Brussels and trigger a reciprocal move being levied on British expatriates. It could save about £21billion annually by the fifth year of the scheme, Reform claimed.
Read more in The Times.
Reverse rise in payroll tax and wages to unlock jobs, Burnham urged
Andy Burnham should partly reverse Rachel Reeves’s £25billion payroll tax increase and slow the equalisation of youth and average minimum wage rates to revive the UK’s stagnant labour market, an employment group has said.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the lobby group for the HR sector, urged the prime minister to ease the cost burden on businesses so they can push ahead with their plans for hiring, and warned that employers’ confidence was close to “record lows”.
Recruitment plans in the private sector have been stuck at their joint-lowest level since the Covid-19 crisis since spring last year, when the former chancellor’s national insurance increase kicked in, the CIPD said.
Read the full story in The Times.
WH Smith chairman accused of CCTV intrusion in row with neighbour
The executive chairman of WH Smith has been accused of unlawfully training a camera on to a neighbour’s home after a “bizarre’’ row over a burnt fence.
Leo Quinn, who was brought in to turn round the travel retailer after an accounting scandal, installed CCTV cameras at his Kimbers Farm equestrian centre near Windsor, in Berkshire, which he rents out to a tenant who looks after polo ponies and other horses.
Chris Knight, his neighbour, claimed he was “breaking the law [with] intrusive surveillance” of his bungalow after failing to register the cameras as required by regulations.
Find out more in The Times.