I am delighted to hear that. I hope that the Minister enjoyed his visit. He is welcome to visit the north of Scotland at any time, not least if one purpose of his visit is to consider the issues raised by my right hon. Friend.

This debate is taking place during a long period of severe winter weather. When I arrived home in Aviemore last Thursday, I found my home under 2 feet of snow. When I woke in Friday morning, almost another foot had fallen, which meant that I had to work from home. All the roads were closed, and I could not fulfil my constituency engagements. As my right hon. Friend said, with snow on the ground in Aviemore and many other parts of my constituency consistently since 16 or 17 December until now, and probably for several weeks more, such matters are particularly important.

I wish to speak about a particular group of people-those who live in rural and remote areas. As my right hon. Friend said, many use heating oil or liquefied petroleum gas to heat their homes, as they are almost exclusively off the mains gas grid. That has a number of consequences. First, people are more likely to suffer fuel poverty. Secondly, more are likely to suffer extreme fuel poverty. Thirdly, they are more likely to have much higher energy costs, and they tend to live in harder-to-treat homes.

I bring some evidence to the debate. It is based on a survey that I carried out with my right hon. Friend Mr. Kennedy last autumn. We focused specifically on the rural parts of my constituency and his-Badenoch and Strathspey in my constituency, parts of rural Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, and Skye and Lochaber in my right hon. Friend's constituency. The evidence demonstrates that fuel poverty is felt more extremely in those parts of the country.

We found that 15 per cent. of people spent more than 10 per cent. of their household income on energy bills. Of those people, 21 per cent. spent more than 20 per cent. of their income on energy bills, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon said, is the definition of extreme fuel poverty. For 49 per cent. of those people, the main source of heating was heating oil. Ten per cent. were using LPG, some were using electric heaters and a few were on mains gas. Over the past year, 70 per cent. had seen their bills rise and 43 per cent. had struggled to pay their energy bills. Various points were raised about energy sources. It was interesting to note how few people received help through social tariffs and how few had tried to switch suppliers.