Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Hannah White.

This week saw both Wishi-Soonak and Kirstama heading out on the campaign trail early, with speeches setting out their

latest attack lines and electoral strategies. But it was Parliament that grabbed attention at the

start of this week, with an all-party parliamentary group report setting out the devastating

trauma that too many women and babies experience through the country's childbirth services.

And on Monday evening, Parliament again put itself to the

fore, voting by the narrowest of margins for MPs to be suspended from the parliamentary estate

if they are arrested for a violent or sexual offence. We'll explore what happened and why,

and what it tells us about how Parliament is attempting to reform itself. And then we'll be

going back to think about

inquiries. We've got the COVID inquiry hearing from Sue Gray this week and due to hear

from Cabinet Secretary Simon Case next week. So we'll be taking a look at what will be coming

up on that front, how these inquiries are faring and what we can expect to happen next.

Joining me to weave our way through

all of this, our IFG Deputy Director and Inquiries expert, Emma, hi Emma. Hi. Hi. And also joining me

is fellow parliamentary watcher, Alice Lilley. Hi, Alice. Hi, Hannah. And I'm delighted that we are

joined by Adam Payne, political editor at Politics Home. Hello, thank you very much for having me.

I'm pleased you can join us, Adam. Okay, let's start with the speeches that have bookended

this week. On Monday, Rishi Sunak used a speech to warn that the UK faced the most dangerous

time for generations, talking about the security threats facing the world, as well as taking

the time to set out what he thought

were threats that the Labour victory would bring. Meanwhile, Kirstama was in Essex on Thursday to

...