Advice Please

One thing to think about is your future state Pension entitlement. As the claimant your wife is getting Class 1 NI credits through her ESA. You do not get any credits from the ESA claim. At the moment you are getting Class 1 credits through your CA claim. If you stop the claim you will no longer get these. It may therefore be prudent to get a State Pension forecast to check whether you already have a full pension or still need further NI years to achieve this.

If your health condition limits your ability to work you could apply for new style ESA yourself. Even if you are not entitled, if you have a WCA and are found to have LCW you can then get NI credits on that basis. That would remove consideration of credits from a decision on the CA.

Consideration of ESA also raises another possibility to maximise your benefit income.

bulldog666 said:...we've received a Severe Disability Claim form .... it won't be awarded as a couple if someone is claiming Carers Allowance for one of us.....

The condition is not that someone is not claiming CA, it is that they are not receiving CA. If it turns out that you are entitled to receive new style ESA then payment of the CA would stop (because of overlapping benefit rules) but you would retain an 'underlying entitlement' to it. Your wife would then become entitled to the double SDP in her ESA award as well as the carer premium.

If you give up the CA claim she loses the carer premium.

The contribution conditions to qualify for new style ESA are explained here
https://www.entitledto.co.uk/help/employment-and-support-allowance-contribution-based
Note in particular the relaxation of the first condition which means that if you were claiming CA at any point in the 2019-20 tax year the first condition can be satisfied from any year of your working life. The credits you get from CA allow you to satisfy condition 2 if you were getting CA throughout 18-19 and 19-20.

Obviously the ESA is only relevant if your health conditions are likely to result in you being found to have LCW and for the SDP with carer premium to be a long term possibility you would need to be put in the ESA Support Group otherwise payment of the ESA would stop after 365 days.

There are three possibilities
1) You maintain your CA claim, your wife will gets the single ESA in her ESA claim (an extra £66.95/week overall compared to existing). You both get NI credits.
2) You cancel the CA claim, your wife gets the double SDP but loses the carer premium (an extra £96.40/week overall compared to existing). Only your wife gets NI credits.
3) You claim new style ESA and are put in the Support Group and keep the CA claim, your wife gets the double SDP and the carer premium (an extra £133.90/week compared to existing). You both get NI credits.

You don't have to rush this, it's not a one time choice. If you return the IS10 now you will be in option 1. If you later cancel the CA or successfully claim ESA you will move to option 2 or 3.

You need to be careful giving up your CA claim if that is what you want to do. There are rules about giving up income to which you are entitled in order to increase means tested benefit entitlement which mean that you can be treated as if you still receive it. If you do want to cancel, it may be better to say that because of your own health conditions you are no longer able to meet the requirement to provide 35 hours of care.