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Sir Reg Empey

The Right Honourable
The Lord Empey
OBE
Chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party
Assumed office
1 April 2012
Preceded by David Campbell
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
15 January 2011
Life Peerage
Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
In office
24 June 2005 – 22 September 2010
Deputy Danny Kennedy
Preceded by David Trimble
Succeeded by Tom Elliott
Minister for Employment and Learning
In office
8 May 2007 – 27 October 2010
First Minister Ian Paisley
Peter Robinson
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness
Preceded by Carmel Hanna
Succeeded by Danny Kennedy
First Minister of Northern Ireland
Acting
In office
1 July 2001 – 6 November 2001
Serving with Seamus Mallon
Preceded by David Trimble
Succeeded by David Trimble
Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment
In office
1 July 1998 – 14 October 2002
First Minister David Trimble
Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon
Preceded by Office created
Succeeded by Nigel Dodds
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Belfast East
In office
25 June 1998 – 5 May 2011
Preceded by Constituency created
Succeeded by Michael Copeland
Personal details
Born Reginald Norman Morgan Empey
(1947-10-26) 26 October 1947 (age 69)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Nationality British
Political party Ulster Unionist Party
(Before 1973; 1984–present)
Other political
affiliations
Ulster Vanguard
(1973–1975)
United Ulster Unionist Party
(1975–1984)
Spouse(s) Stella Empey
Children 2
Alma mater Queen's University Belfast
Profession Businessman

Reginald Norman Morgan Empey, Baron Empey, OBE (born 26 October 1947), best known as Reg Empey, is a British politician who was the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party from 2005 to 2010, and has been its chairman since 2012. Empey was also twice Lord Mayor of Belfast and was a Member of the Legislative Assembly for East Belfast from 1998 to 2011.

Reg Empey was born in West Belfast on 26 October 1947. His family were retailers, and his uncle was a Stormont Ulster Unionist MP. Empey attended Hillcrest Preparatory School, Belfast, and The Royal School, Armagh, before graduating with an economics degree from Queen's University of Belfast, where his contemporaries included the future MP Bernadette Devlin. After that he built up a business career, specifically in retailing. His Royal Avenue store, located opposite the British Army barracks, was destroyed in an explosion, and looted.

He first entered politics in the late 1960s when he joined the Ulster Young Unionist Council. Along with other hardline unionists, he left in protest at reforms and became an early member of the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party, serving as the party chairman in 1975 and being elected to the Constitutional Convention in the same year. When Vanguard split during the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention, Empey joined the breakaway group which formed the United Ulster Unionist Party, serving as the party's deputy leader from 1977 until its dissolution in 1984.


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