Lady Sylvia Hermon

UUP MP North Down

Date of birth

11 August 1955

Political profile

Lady Sylvia Hermon was one of the two new Ulster Unionists elected in 2001, and ousted the anti-Agreement unionist Robert McCartney, formerly the sole parliamentary representative of the United Kingdom Unionist Party.

She won with the support of the Alliance Party, which withdrew its candidate in her favour.

She was selected to fight the seat less than a month before the general election, after the previous prospective candidate - dissident Northern Ireland Assembly Member Peter Weir - was deselected after consistently opposing the UUP party line at Stormont.

Hermon was Chairman of the North Down Ulster Unionists and is unashamedly pro-Trimble and pro-Good Friday Agreement.

She was, in fact, a colleague of Trimble as a lecturer in the Law Faculty at Queen's University Belfast.

Lady Hermon takes more than a passing interest in policing matters, since she is married to former Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable Sir Jack Hermon, whom she got to know when he contacted her after she had written an article critical of him.

Contact

Commons office: 020 7219 8491