During a debate on Armenian allegations in the British House of Lords on 14 April 1999 Foreign Office Minister Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, on behalf of the British Government, stated that “... but in the absence of unequivocal evidence to show that the Ottoman administration took a specific decision to eliminate the Armenians under their control at the time, British governments have not recognised the events of 1915 and 1916 as "genocide". ... the vast majority of other governments--are in a similar position. Very few of them have officially attributed the name "genocide" to these tragic events. In our opinion that is rightly so, because we do not believe it is the business of governments today to review events of over 80 years ago with a view to pronouncing on them... these are matters of legal and historical debate, ...”

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On 22 January 2007 during a parliamentary debate in the British House of Lords, Lord Bishop of Manchester submitted a question concerning the British government’s position on Armenian allegations. On behalf of the British Government, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Parliamentary Affairs, Lord Triesman answered the question as follows:

“Lord Triesman: My Lords, I start with the most significant part of the right reverend Prelate's question. For this Government, recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide is not a condition of Turkey's membership of the EU. I wish to be straightforward and clear about that. Neither this Government nor previous British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be characterised as genocide under the 1948 UN convention on genocide.” 

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