Role at the time: Labour Foreign Secretary.
Recorded excerpt
those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives
The exchange and context
Nick Timothy asked Lammy to reject descriptions of genocide. Lammy said the terms were legal ones for international courts and connected their historical use with mass deaths in Rwanda and the Holocaust. He said contemporary use undermined their seriousness.
What this records
The Genocide Convention does not prescribe a minimum death toll of millions. Its definition concerns listed acts and the required intent to destroy a protected group wholly or partly. Lammy’s answer is recorded as his characterisation, not as the legal definition. S15
Sources: S59.
Short excerpts identify the statement; the linked source provides the fuller record. Original media have not been downloaded into this archive.