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PLANS to privatise the Royal Mail could leave Welsh communities without a regular post delivery, shadow Welsh secretary Peter Hain warned last night.
The Government wants to sell off Royal Mail – saying it needs private cash to allow it to modernise and compete in the era of e-mail and internet shopping.
Ministers say a proportion of the company could be given to postal workers in the form of shares, a similar model to that used by retailer John Lewis.
The Royal Mail’s pension scheme – a whopping £10bn in the red – would still be controlled by the Government, and there are no plans to privatise the Post Office network.
But Mr Hain, pictured below, warned that Royal Mail’s historic obligation to deliver to every home in Britain could go if privatisation goes ahead.
The Neath MP said: “I think Wales is most vulnerable in all of this, because we have lots of outlying areas, remote villages and so on.
“Inevitably a privatised Royal Mail is going to go for the cheapest option, and I think this could see the introduction of collection boxes in the middle of villages rather than delivery to the door. I think it’s a real, big, threat.”
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