Hello and welcome to the special question time edition of Inside Briefing, the podcast from the

Institute for Government. I'm Emma Norris. So we're recording this less than 24 hours after

Rishi Sunak braved the weather and told the nation that he was calling a general election.

And since then, we've been bombarded with questions about what this means for government, for parliament, for the civil service, legislation, candidates, conferences and more.

And these really are the types of question that get the IFGs collective pulses racing.

So we've scrambled together a team of IFG experts and here they are in the podcast studio at your service. A big hello to

Hannah White, Joe Owen and Kath Haddon. Hi all. Hello, Emma. Hello. Hello. Okay, so first

and most important question, let's get it out the way given it's dominated dominated everything, set yes of the evening. Why did Rishi Sunax stand outside in the rain to announce

the election? Ah, great question. Nobody knows. I mean, the main answer is that you are, it's a party

political speech, so you are not supposed to do those using government property.

So there was not a prime minister's logo on the lectern as he delivered the speech and also can't do it inside government properties.

That's why prime ministers often end up doing those speeches outside of number 10 because it's been decided that's fine.

He could have gone to a different venue.

Most importantly, somebody just could have given him an umbrella or held one for him, which might have been... Just not government property umbrella.

Not a government property umbrella or one with a logo. Yeah. Okay, there you go. You've had it.

There is a real reason for going outside, but no real reason to not use an umbrella.

Okay, so real questions. A good starting point from Will Adams. What happens to all the MPs? If they stop being MPs, do they stop being paid and getting expenses? Kath.

So no, they do cease to be MPs. They are just candidates, but the way in which their pay and

expenses are worked. So Ipsa, which is the parliamentary body that handles a lot of all of this,

has guidance for them. It is all calculated up until polling day. They are not allowed to use any

of that for anything election related, anything party political or campaign or whatever. But obviously,

they still have a staff in place. The key issue is obviously then

...