From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpay lip service to somebody/somethingpay lip service to somebody/somethingPRETENDto say that you support or agree with something without doing anything to prove it organizations that pay lip service to career development → lip service
Examples from the Corpus
pay lip service to somebody/something• The professors all pay lip service to welcoming every point of view, but most really do not.• Though everybody pays lip service to performance, politics is often the ultimate arbiter of their fate.• Previous governments have paid lip service to the idea but achieved little.• It pays lip service to local choices but provides no specific means to make them more rational and efficient.• Politicians pay lip service to crime.• We need to stop paying lip service to them.• They pay lip service to equality but they don't want to have to do anything committed about it.• The conventional methodology tends to pay lip service to user involvement. 