I am in Vancouver today to honour my friend Peter Kellond

Peter is being inducted into the Greater Vancouver Motorsports Hall of Fame tomorrow.

In the 60's we raced motor cycles together at Westwood, the road racing circuit in the hills to the east of the city.

I brought a motor bike with me when I sailed from Greenock to Montreal in 1964 and I rode it across the country to Vancouver where I spent three years doing research in the Biochemistry Department at UBC. In 1965 I visited Westwood and met Peter's brother Geoffrey at the track. We became friends and I started racing on his 250cc Yamaha.

Over the years, I got better and moved up to Expert Class. In 1969 I entered the TT races on the Isle of Man, then the Mecca of the sport. Six laps of the 37.73 mile Mountain Circuit on normal island roads, the ultimate challenge. Engine failure after eight miles ended that effort.

I returned to the Isle of Man in 1970, finished the race and won a silver replica.

In 1970 and 71, I finished in the 200 mile races at Daytona Beach, Florida and Ontario Motor Speedway, California competing against the world's best riders.

Racing motor cycles is a risky business. In the 1969 TT races six riders died.

If you race motor cycles, you have to consider the consequences even if only in the dark hours of the night.

Death defines Life.

Just as failure defines success. Hate defines love etc.

When we are children, our parents protect us and shield us from the risks they see but we do not.

Part of the difficult process of growing up is deciding for ourselves what risks are acceptable in our lives. Deciding what life we want to live.

We can never eliminate risk. It is ever present. As individuals and as a society, we have to deal with risk.

How we deal with risk will define who we are as individuals and as a society.

In Scotland today, children are being overprotected against risk.

This has come about because of a number of high profile tragedies involving children. These events were blown out of proportion by the media. Politicians overreacted and passed well intended legislation which is having unintended consequences for Scottish children.

Anyone having any contact with children in a formal setting has to be certified.

The certification process is onorous and expensive.

Voluntary organisations are struggling to attract enough adults to staff their activities for children. The opportunities for children to meet and interact with other children outside school become less each week.

More and more, children are becoming prisoners in their own homes entertained by video games and missing out on healthy play outdoors.

We do need to protect children against unacceptable risk. As a society, we have to acknowledge and accept that some level of risk is part of life and development.

Most child abuse involves other family members and this will not be eliminated by any screening program. We do need a simplified vetting program to identify those individuals who should have no contact with children.

Freedom, risk, trust and responsibility.

All sides of the same coin. The same consideration of our values both personal and collective.

Are we free? What are the risks? Who do we trust? Do we accept responsibility?

Scottish society is evolving in ways that restrict all of these values. Central government doesn't trust professionals to do their jobs. The professionals lose part of their freedom even if they are willing to accept responsibility.

In health care and education, central government sets performance targets and teachers and doctors spend large amounts of their time ticking boxes and filling out the paper work.

We need to remove the close scrutiny of the trained professionals, allow them to do their jobs. Put the money into services that deliver health care and education not the paper mountain whose only purpose is to justify government policy. We need to improve productivity in all segments of Scottish society. A properly functioning productive society will deliver real economic benefits for Scots. This is not about fiddling about with the margins of the tax rates. It’s not about oil. This is about fundamental changes. It is about freedom, it is about risk, it is about trust, it is about responsibility.

We need radical changes in our approach to risk, trust and responsibility. A nation that can take risks is an enlightened society where ideas flourish, the creative spirit is allowed to soar and individual talents contribute fully to the national effort. We need to be free of the restraints of conventional party political thinking. Free to find Scottish solutions to Scottish problems. Free of the limits imposed by Brussels and London.

Failure defines success just as death defines life. More lessons are learned through failure than will ever come from success. Failure is personal. It encourages thought. It builds character. The strong survive and move on. The weak give up. We must encourage business ventures of all sorts. We must support risk takers. Not by eliminating the risks they face but by removing the barriers they encounter in setting up their enterprise. Scottish business success won't come from grand government schemes. It will come from supporting individuals and small groups of like minded people who can think, have ideas and are willing to take risks. They need the freedom to try. We have to trust their judgement. Not all will succeed. Those that do will astonish us all. They will make us proud to be Scottish!

In this context, freedom is not a party political issue. It should be a theme common to conservatives, socialists, and liberals in the political spectrum. We need a forum of people willing to discuss the concepts, consider the options. We can form an alliance of like minded individuals ready to stand on a unified platform for change.