Market Position Of Electoral Reform Services

EDM number 1670 in 2010-12, proposed by Mark Durkan on 29/03/2011.
Categorised under the topic of Electoral systems.

That this House notes that Electoral Reform Services (ERS) is a business of the Electoral Reform Society Limited (ERSL); expresses concern at that company's undue dominance of the market for electoral management and balloting services; acknowledges the misgivings of other worthy and innovative firms who find themselves unfairly undercut and unduly squeezed by ERSL; is worried that a senior executive could boast that, as a cash-rich business with no shareholders, ERSL are free to price undercut any competition and so maintain and enhance market dominance; deplores the ability of ERSL to use their ownership of Xpress to constrain competitive procurement choice by local authorities, in respect of election management service contracts, by refusing to allow relevant electoral register data to be made available to competitors who might win such contracts; regrets that the Electoral Reform Society's creditable concerns to ensure fairness in elections are not reflected in any credible regard by ERSL for fair competition in their business practices; calls on the Electoral Reform Society to decisively repudiate ERSL's abuse of its philanthropic credentials in pursuit of their commercial predations; notes the potential market implications of plans for individual registration and additional public balloting on local referenda, police commissioners and other elections; and calls on all relevant Ministers and other public offices to consider fullyand investigate the issues at stake, including competitive public procurement, fair trading, market plurality and diversity and the public integrity of the electoral register and related identifier data.

This motion has been signed by a total of 7 MPs.