division_name: Orders of the Day &#8212; Clause 3 &#8212; Section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003: Northern Ireland
motion: <p class="" pid="c.1650.0/1" pwmotiontext="yes">I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.</p>
  
  <p class="" pid="c.1650.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">The Government are committed to rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the law-abiding majority. The Bill enables the most serious and complex fraud trials to be heard by a judge alone to ensure that justice is done in those sorts of cases. A trial by a judge sitting alone will be appropriate for only a small number of cases&#8212;our estimate is about half a dozen cases each year. The maximum would be about 20, but we do not anticipate that we are likely to get close to that figure. To give us plenty of margin, and so as not to mislead anyone, that is the figure that we have considered. If we are able to have such trials, it will be possible to expose the full criminality of complex and serious fraud cases in court, and our criminal justice system will have the tools that it needs to deal properly with such major crime.</p>
  
  <p class="italic" pid="c.1658.4/1" pwmotiontext="yes"> It being Six o'clock, Madam Deputy Speaker,  put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [<phrase class="date" code="2006-11-29" pwmotiontext="yes">29 November 2006</phrase>].</p>
  
  <p pid="c.1658.4/2" pwmotiontext="yes"><i> The House divided:</i> Ayes 281, Noes 246.</p>