Sylvia Hermon

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Sylvia Eileen, Lady Hermon (born 11 August 1955) is a unionist politician and Member of Parliament for the Northern Ireland constituency of North Down.

Born Sylvia Eileen Paisley in Castlecaulfield, Dungannon, County Tyrone, she studied at Dungannon High School before studying Law at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (obtaining a First) and went on to lecture in Law at the Queen's University of Belfast at the same time as David Trimble. She did not enter politics until 1998 when she joined the Ulster Unionist Party having been impressed by the role they played in negotiating the Belfast Agreement. She had risen to a place on the party Executive by the following year.

She was chosen as UUP candidate for the North Down constituency to contest the 2001 general election and managed to defeat the incumbent Member of Parliament, Robert McCartney by over 7000 votes. She had the support of the local branch of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland who withdrew their candidate from the contest.

Hermon became Chair of the North Down branch of the UUP in 2001 and held this position until 2003. In 2001 she was also appointed UUP Spokesperson for Youth and Women's Issues, Home Affairs and Trade and Industry. She subsequently lost the Trade and Industry portfolio and took responsibility for Culture, Media and Sport in 2002. Outside of the UUP she has also been involved in policing support and pensioners' rights campaigns.

She is married to Sir Jack Hermon, former Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and is styled Lady Hermon.

She was the only UUP MP to be returned to Westminster in the 2005 general election and as a result figured largely in consideration for who would succeed David Trimble. Initially considered to be amongst the front-runners, Lady Hermon eventually declined the opportunity, feeling that she could not combine it with her care duties for her husband, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, instead supporting the unsuccessful bid of Alan McFarland.