Cabinet Office minister Ian McCartney said it was symptomatic of "William Hague's weak leadership and bad judgement and his hokey-cokey over Steven Norris shows just why the public don't trust them".
"I don't think the benefit to Amazon has been that great, " said Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information, a research and consultancy company.
"I don't know what their purposes were but their timing was notable to say the least, " Mr Norris was quoted by the Globe and Mail newspaper as saying.