RE NEW ESA RULES REGARDING PENISION/SAVINGS ETC

I am seeing someone from the local mind office and i have asked recently about these forthcoming changes regards peoples pension and savings and that ESA will be reduced if you have a certain amount of income or savings etc.

Can you please clarify the situation as she seems not to know about these changes and seems not to know about them even though she is Minds benifit advisor etc.

Do these changes still take place even if you are place in the support group.
If your pension is a ill health one does that matter and what if your wife does not work as she is your carer?

If you have an Occupational Pension that began before 2001 is it still disregarded as income or have they changed the rules? I know they're still dithering about paying tax on pensions for those whose claim began sometime in the 90's but I haven't seen much about the pre-2001 issue. Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks,
WW

Gordon wrote:

Legislation, expected to be en-acted in the next month, will restrict the receipt of ESA(CB) to one year for members of the WRAG, not the Support Group, after this time they will be eligible for ESA(IR), subject to the means test.

It seems that Liam Byrne would like to see a two year limit placed on CB ESA if you're placed in the WRAG.

"But Byrne is prepared to accept more than three-quarters of £3.4bn in welfare savings next year in two areas. First, principled savings designed to increase incentives for work – Labour will accept limiting ESA payments, replacement for Incapacity Benefit, but Byrne wants it limited after two years, rather than one. Second, burden-sharing savings which spread the making of savings around the system – including accepting indexation of welfare payments from RPI to CPI, though for three years only, and not permanently."

Source:- Here

This has always been a bone of contention for me. Thanks to my poor health and my husbands redundancies, we have had an interest only mortgage for a good number of years as we cannot afford the full repayment. But, because of this, we have to hold and prove a suitable "repayment vehicle" to ensure we can pay off the mortgage and cover any negative equity when we sell. This means between my husband and I, we hold ISA accounts that would put us over the threshold. We cannot access this money as it has to stay there in order to meet the terms of our mortgage. I have explained this a couple of times to my DWP office who agreed that it was an unfair situation. So, for me - it is even more vital that I win my appeal to be put back into the Support Group and can only hope that I remain there if my health does not improve when this rule of only one year on contribution based ESA for WRAG comes in.