Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Catherine Haddon.

A government working majority of 165 means the Prime Minister will never lose a vote, right?

Well, maybe not. The government's

controversial plans to cut the welfare budget have caused serious disquiet on the Labour benches.

The revolt is growing by the day, and at the time of recording, with more than 120 Labour MPs

joining the rebellion against the planned £5 billion worth of cuts, although I should say, but with stories coming out now

that the government might concede on aspects. So just how serious is this for Kirstama? How has the

government got itself into this situation and what comes next? We'll crunch the numbers. It isn't

just Labour MPs that are giving number 10 a headache. Apparently,

civil servants are too, because number 10 has issued new guidance, demanding that civil

servants no longer speak on panels at public events. In fact, because of this edict, we had to

cancel an IFG event this week. So what's the thinking behind this slightly heavy-handed approach and does

it add up? We will find out. Two IFG program directors are with me today. Tim Durant, who leads

our minister's work and Alex Thomas, director of our civil service team. Hi, both. Hi, Kath.

And I'm delighted that we're joined today for his IFG podcast debut by Luke Sullivan,

a veteran of the Labour WIPP's office, former political director to Kier-Starma, and now a

director at Headland Consultancy. Thanks very much for joining us. Any FOMO on a week like this,

Luke? Absolutely not. It's watching on from afar like everybody else.

But yeah, it's interesting to watch it and not be a participant anymore.

Yeah, and hopefully more interesting to talk about it.

Okay, well, let's dig in.

Alex, can you give us a quick primer on welfare? What's on the table

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