By Dr Iliyan Stefanov
Liberal Democrat candidate for Ochil and South Perthshire

Liberal Democrats offer an alternative way to the 'Lets fix everything by jumping off a cliff' school of politics so popular here and abroad.

We are bringing forward practical policies to combat the challenges we face both in terms of money and jobs and health and welfare.

We want to help encourage all types of business to thrive by creating a fairer corporate tax code, where giant multinationals pay their fair share, helping entrepreneurs with new ideas get access to the finance and technical support, supporting small businesses to recruit the talent they need, and promoting new types of business model such as mutual and community interest companies.

Liberal Democrats are clear that our NHS must provide high quality care to all. We have long campaigned for equality of mental health care in our NHS.

In government we secured additional investment and the first-ever treatment waiting-time standards for mental health, and we will continue to campaign tirelessly for the highest standards of care and the extra money which is still needed.

We know that to support every child, our education system must be properly funded. It is our policy to protect school funding in real terms, from the early years right through to college.

We cannot deliver the best education for all, when our teaching workforce is demoralised and undervalued; we are committed to working with education professionals to tackle the workload and recruitment challenges they face.

We must act now to guarantee our children and future generations a better, greener, more sustainable and positive way of life. That is why the Liberal Democrats have gone further than any other party in pushing for an ambitious new target for reducing our carbon emissions.

We believe that net emissions must be reduced to zero by 2050 and have a plan of how to do it. As well as greener energy, we want to improve our countryside and green spaces so we pass them on to the next generation in a better condition than when we were children.

In agriculture, our farmers do an essential job putting food on our tables and enhancing the natural environment, but food policy has been neglected for too long. We will encourage investment, growth, innovation and new entrants, securing the future of the UK food and farming industry.

There is another aspect of all this, however, with Brexit less than two years away. We insure ourselves when we buy a house, a car, and plan to travel abroad and often buy a life insurance to add protection in regard of our family too. Perhaps we should extend this to politics as well.

The policies proposed by Conservatives carry significant risks to how we all will live after the separation from the EU. The policies of Labour feel as risky on the domestic level. Support for Liberal Democrats may be the insurance we all need that our own future will not be traded off for the sake of political dogmas.