Here are the stories making the business headlines this morning.
National shortage of bus drivers hits First Bus
First Bus has reassured customers that staff are doing everything in their power to keep as many services running as possible amid a driver shortage.
A total of 31 journeys in Aberdeen were cancelled yesterday, according to the Press & Journal, which says there is currently no indication when the timetable will return to normal.
First said there is a national shortage of bus drivers and confirmed staff illness is not causing the current issues.
Abolishing ‘not proven’ is dangerous, solicitors warn
Lawyers have warned that removing the controversial “not proven” verdict in Scotland’s court system would be “dangerous” and “undoubtedly” result in miscarriages of justice, the Times reports.
The Law Society of Scotland, the professional body for more than 12,000 solicitors, has told ministers it is “irresponsible” to implement any changes at a time when the criminal justice system and the profession are in “disarray” due to extensive backlogs in the court system, the “chronic underfunding” of legal aid and growing problems recruiting defence lawyers.
Keith Brown, the justice secretary, said: “Any potential reforms will be considered alongside wider work including the outcome of the current consultation on improving victims’ experiences of the justice system.”
Frustration as windfall tax becomes law
The energy-profits levy, which was passed into law on Wednesday, risks starving the North Sea of tens of billions of pounds of investment, Offshore Energies UK warned.
The government announced the tax on oil and gas profits in May as a way to fund support for Britons hit by soaring inflation and energy bills. The levy, which is expected to raise £5 billion ($5.9 billion) of additional taxes, increases taxation from to 65% from 40% previously.
“Exploring for oil and gas and then bringing it to shore is inherently a risky and expensive business, so our members need the UK’s fiscal rules and other regulations to be stable and predictable before they consider investing the hundreds of millions of pounds needed for such projects,” OEUK head Deirdre Michie told Energy Voice.
M&S scraps 'best before' dates on fruit and veg
Marks & Spencer is taking "best before" dates off more than 300 fruit and vegetable items to tackle food waste.
They will be replaced by a code that M&S staff can use to check freshness and quality, the BBC said.
Tesco, Morrisons and Co-op are among supermarkets that have scrapped "use by" dates on some of their products.
Younger people abandon streaming to save money
More people are cancelling their video subscriptions to save money in the face of the cost of living squeeze, with under-24s most likely to walk away.
In the second quarter of the year, almost 1.66 million services were dropped from the likes of Netflix, Now and Disney in the UK and more than a third of these were directly attributable to people tightening their belts. Half a million households cancelled all their subscriptions, according to Kantar, the market researcher.
It comes after a trend that started in the first three months of the year, when 1.5 million video on-demand subscriptions were cancelled, according to the Times.