[7] On 7 December 2020, Lord Purvis of Tweed proposed Amendment 6 "for greater accountability and transparency of deals... and (for) negotiating objectives (to) be put before Parliament and approved by both Houses before talks on potential trade agreements start."

[11] According to a Daily Telegraph journalist in a piece concerning Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the Government on 12 January 2021 "suffered a defeat in the House of Lords over an amendment to the trade bill, introduced by Baroness Kidron, preventing UK negotiators from signing up to treaty provisions giving protections to US tech giants.

"[15] On 19 January 2021, the speaker reminded the Commons that the bill was a matter of confidence, and then government, which had chosen to oppose all Lords amendments, narrowly averted a loss over the Alton amendment on genocide by the margin 319 to 308. Notable rebels were Duncan Smith, David Davis, Damian Green, Tom Tugendhat, Tobias Ellwood, Caroline Nokes, Tracey Crouch, Jonathan Djanogly and Nus Ghani.

[16][17][18] The Board of Deputies of British Jews was interested in the matter and said that "we will continue to campaign energetically for justice for the Uyghurs and will be supporting the revised (Duncan Smith) amendment to be tabled in the House of Lords.

A Jewish News campaign was mounted "urging MPs to back the amendment", with a "special front page editorial printed this week", calling on them to "Stop Uyghur Genocide".

Ghani wrote: "Clear message from @HouseofCommons that we will not be bystanders to genocide", while Ellwood complained that "I should not have to rebel against my own Government to support the international moral high ground.

"[17] On 3 February the legislative ping-pong was well and truly joined and in the House of Lords government suffered defeat on three new amendments:[19] Daily Telegraph economics editor Jeremy Warner opined on 19 January 2021 that "Pressure groups cannot dictate our relationship with China",[20] while the editorial board remarked on the same day on the same topic that "It was only five years ago that (Chancellor of the Exchequer) George Osborne proclaimed a golden era of Sino-UK relations, describing this country as Beijing's 'best partner in the West'.

Given the crushing of democracy in Hong Kong, China's failure to be transparent about the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its increasingly bellicose posturing against Taiwan, such optimism now looks hopelessly naive.

"[22] An editorial written on 3 February 2021 in the Daily Telegraph said government "risks a bigger Tory backbench rebellion when the amendment comes back to the Commons" and pointed out that immediate targets of this legislation would include not only China but also Israel "which is presumably not what its supporters have in mind.