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The suffered defeats on three issues in the House of Lords on Wednesday.

Peers rejected means testing of the employment support allowance for some cancer patients after 12 months, extending it to two years. They also voted down the proposed 12-month limit on ESA claimants judged capable of work in the future, and rejected moves to stop young people who have never worked due to illness or disability from receiving contributory ESA.

And the national newspapers have reacted to the hat trick of government defeats.

Ministers are now facing a . And the Daily Telegraph suggested the vulnerable are being .

In , Polly Toynbee writes:
"If not these cuts, then what, the government challenged the Lords rebels yesterday? The answer is to cut almost anything else before picking on the disabled."

Employment minister Chris Grayling told the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ that ministers would seek to reverse the amendments in the Lords when they came back into the Commons.

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