Billy was born at Ballynewy, near Coagh on June 21st 1943, into a farming family. He now owns a large beef herd at Prospect House, Stewartstown. A member of the Ulster Unionist Party since the mid-1960’s, Billy has been married to Glynis since 1970, and is a father of four and a grandfather of 6. Billy served for 14 years (1975-89) as a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve, all the while continuing his duties on the family farm.

In 1998, Billy believed the Good Friday Agreement was the best deal possible at that time, and was one of six MLAs elected to represent Mid Ulster in the newly constituted Northern Ireland Assembly; he was the only Ulster Unionist elected from the constituency. Since then, he has been successfully re-elected in 2003 and 2007. He has served on the Agriculture & Rural Development, Enterprise, Trade & Investment and Environment Committees in the past, and now serves as a recently appointed member of the Social Development Committee at Stormont. He also functions as the Deputy Whip of the Ulster Unionist Party Assembly Group at Stormont, assisting Fred Cobain MLA.

Billy is rightly proud of the faith and trust the electorate of Mid Ulster have placed in him for the last decade as their Ulster Unionist MLA. He strives to represent and defend the interests of all his constituents, both in his constituency office and on the floor of the Assembly. He has established himself as one of the most persistent advocates on behalf of his constituents in the Assembly, and by virtue of his first election in 1998, has become one of the longest serving members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. In the 2005 General Election campaign, Billy ‘flew the flag’ for the Ulster Unionist Party, when he was selected as the party’s first candidate since 1983 to contest the Mid Ulster Westminster seat. On what was a bad day electorally for the UUP, Billy performed very creditably by raising the party’s Westminster vote in Mid Ulster from zero to 10.7%.