I declare an interest, as my home is off grid. We are heated by an oil-based central heating system, and I have received the £200 alternative fuel payment from my energy company, Octopus Energy.

The Liberal Democrats support this scheme but, like others, we have very serious concerns about the way in which it has been constructed and implemented. I have liaised with the Minister through correspondence and at Business questions last week on the fact that a number of people whose homes are heated entirely by electricity should not, on my reading of the regulations, have been given the alternative fuel payment, but on the basis of the modelling used by the Department, they have been given it. Others in an identical situation will now have to make an application through the portal that went live yesterday. If the Government are to implement their own regulations, those applications will be refused. That will leave us in the manifestly unfair situation whereby, for two households in exactly the same situation, one will be in receipt of the £200 payment and the other will not. The Minister has already told me in correspondence that there are no plans to claw back payments that have been made. That being the case, what will be the remedy for those whose application through the portal is refused?

I look at the information that has been put into the public domain on the way in which tokens for people on prepayment meters can be paid out, and I look at the information that has been given to me by my own energy company, and they both say that the tokens can be redeemed through PayPoint. That is true, but they can also be obtained through the Post Office. Only a handful of the outer islands in my constituency have access to PayPoint, but people can go to their local post office. The information going to the end energy user should surely reflect that.

One business in Orkney brought to my attention today the fact that it will not, apparently, receive the payment because it changed its energy supplier at the start of the year. It will not get the payment from its new energy supplier or from its former one, which, again, appears to be a fundamental unfairness.

The issue relating to district heating schemes does not affect many communities, but it very much affects Lerwick, where Shetland Heat, Energy & Power provides a district heating scheme to many local households. It appears to us that they have been excluded from the scheme. Will the Minister explain to us, either now or in correspondence, why that should be the case?

The applications that are now having to be made by those who have not received their payment automatically are to be done through the portal. So will the Minister tell us how long it will take for those people to be given a decision? In the event that they are unhappy with the decision made, what will be their appeal process? It is matter of record that there is a significant overlap between homes that are off grid and those that have poor or no internet access. A number of vulnerable elderly people just do not use internet services at all, but there appears only to be an online application process. Will the Minister explain to the House why no offline process—no paper-based process—is in place for that small number of people who remain highly vulnerable?

Finally, I turn to the issue of those who rely on solid fuel—peat, coal or logs—for their heating. It is now apparent that they will have to provide receipts. Those can go back to September, but someone who has been buying coal at their shop, perhaps in a small bag, every week since goodness knows when will not have kept their receipts. How are those people, who have incurred the expense, going to get access to this important payment? It is arbitrary to say that solid fuel bought only after September will be eligible for reimbursement. I know a lot of people who will buy solid fuel in the summer months because it is at its cheapest then. What will be done to ensure that those people, who are now being told that they should have been keeping the receipts from their weekly shopping since September, are not going to be excluded?

Will the Minister tell us how many payments have already been made? How many people will now have to make an application through the portal? How many does the Department estimate will remain off grid but will not receive a payment under this scheme?