South Shields smoking survivor to give speech at Parliament

Sue Mountain, aged 57 from South Shields, began smoking at only 11 years old. After battling cancer twice, Sue gave up the habit and is now encouraging 314,000 smokers in the region to do the same.  

Now, Sue has headed to Parliament to deliver a speech at an AAPG event. Sue is part of a group of representatives from the North East, who will be calling on the Government to do more to reduce smoking in the UK.

Sue, alongside Cathy Hunt from Durham will be attending the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health to mark four years since the Government committed to make England ‘smokefree’ by 2030.

With only seven years left to meet this commitment, and smoking rates still at 14.8% in the North East, Sue alongside others will be campaigning for the Government to take further action.

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This will be the second time that Sue has attended and spoke at the APPG event. Sue said: You lie to yourself and say you love smoking but you need the cigarette – that’s the addiction. Over the years I think I probably spent over £100,000 on cigarettes… I could have bought half a house with that or seen the world instead of getting cancer.

“Tobacco has killed nearly eight million people in the UK in the last 50 years. Why do we tolerate this? Why aren’t we doing more to stop people dying? It’s time tobacco companies were made to pay for more support for smokers and awareness campaigns encouraging people to stop.”

Sue is part of a televised campaign by Fresh Quit, the UK’s first dedicated regional programme for tobacco control.