An intense court case involving divorce proceedings is adjourned for lunch. Husband and wife then discover they are both going to be eating in the same cafeteria.
Visiting unemployed brothers Clack and Ged, social security inspector Mr. Hicks finds few reasons for sympathy. However, the tables are turned on the investigator: Clack defends Ged as 'a paying member of the welfare state' rather than a case for charity, and events take a sinister turn.