From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story.

I'm Luke Jones.

Two lines on a pregnancy test can mean excitement, celebration, but also a lot of worry and nervousness.

Birth is life's greatest challenge, but for some it is too challenging, too risky.

A woman is four and a half times more likely to die today in childbirth than a road traffic accident or from a heart attack.

Today's is a difficult story, difficult to listen to perhaps, but it's important to hear.

I'd gone from the happiest I've ever been, thinking I was going into hospital to bring my daughter home

to, like, the worst possible news, to the point where I sort of thought to myself,

this has to be a nightmare, like this can't be real.

More than half of all maternity units across England are deemed not safe.

And a series of recent high-profile scandals have laid bare the failings of NHS leadership,

a lack of staff training, a lack of staff,

but also a lack of compassion,

which have all contributed to the deaths of

hundreds of mothers and babies. You can kill children in this country as long as you do it in an

NHS institution and you just go back to work the next day. Seven major reviews of NHS maternity care have come and gone in England, and yet mistakes

keep being made. And it's costing the NHS eye-watering amounts. Recent analysis found that

in the four years from 2019, the NHS in England paid £18 billion for maternity care and £27.4 billion on maternity negligence claims.

What's this latest government going to do?

I've heard dozens of stories, each unique, each told with heartbreaking clarity and each with a common theme that what should

have been a moment of joy became a terrifying ordeal.

Last June, the Health Secretary West Streeting announced another review. This one will at least

...