Fleur Butler: Why conservatives must sell resilience, not welfare

Fleur Butler OBE is Director of Development for Conservative Women’s Organisation

The row over the two-child benefit cap has become a predictable clash between left-wing moral outrage about “the poor” and right-wing arguments about cost, GDP and fairness to taxpayers. Conservatives rarely say they care; the Greens rarely say where the money will come from, beyond “the rich.” But the Conservative case on fiscal restraint simply does not land with younger voters. Their economic reality is different from their parents’, and their news comes through social media algorithms that reward emotion over economics. If we only speak the language of older voters, we have no future. 

We also fail to explain that this debate is not just about welfare policy. It is about what kind of society we want, and whether capitalism can still offer young people, especially women with children, a safer, freer and more prosperous future.  A basic economic truth is being ignored: partnership between two people is still the most effective form of wealth-sharing most people will ever experience, while the state will always be limited and often disappointing. Of the 1.5 million children in single-parent households, 41 per cent are in poverty, compared with 23 per cent in two-parent households. Stable partnerships reduce child poverty, women’s pension poverty, demand for social housing, loneliness, mental health strain and dependence on welfare. They reduce the tax burden on working families. On average, women and men get more financial support from a partnership than from the state. 

Yet politicians are afraid to talk about this for fear of sounding moralistic. We should make the economic case instead. The state is increasingly being asked to take on functions once shared within families. But it is structurally incapable of providing emotional, practical and flexible support. It cannot read a bedtime story, collect a sick child from school, or share the daily load of care. It cannot even put the bins out badly. It can only redistribute money, inefficiently and at enormous cost. Attitudinal studies published this spring show young women in particular are increasingly distrustful of men and are delaying relationships and children. Yet no one points out that the state is an even worse partner: cold, bureaucratic and transactional. Even the most average man will often offer more support than the welfare system ever can. For those in abusive or broken relationships, the state must always be there. But it should never be sold as the first or better option, because it cannot be. 

Polling from the 2024 election revealed a deeper divide. While attention focused on young men voting Reform, far less was said about the overwhelming number of young women voting Left or Green. There has been no Louis Theroux documentary on the femo-rage conspiracy theories on line, nor film of young women committing acts of violence against the police and state infrastructure. This invisible shift is not driven by understanding the details of welfare policy It reflects a broader belief that capitalism is failing them and that the state offers more security. This is where Conservatives are losing. We argue macroeconomics and statistics while the Left sells a vision.  

Young women facing high rents, insecure work and a cost-of-living crisis do not feel “fiscal responsibility” in daily life. To them, the state feels safer than the market, safer than men and safer than family.  But this misunderstands what the state can provide. Welfare can redistribute income, but it cannot create resilience, stability or shared resources in a household. It cannot insulate women from the economic realities of childbirth, caring responsibilities, healthcare needs and time out of the labour market. The state will always be a second-best partner.  We need to make the case that capitalism is not just about growth, but about freedom, resilience and choice. It has done more than any welfare state to lift people out of poverty and has given women independence, opportunity and freedom. Yes, capitalism needs rules and reform to remain fair and resilient. But destroying it will not make young people safer, they need to work with us to make it function better for all. To join us, as we have the better vision for the future. 

The two-child cap is a case study in this. Lifting it may help some families, but it also increases the burden on working people already struggling, many of them young themselves. Yet the debate is framed as compassion versus cruelty, rather than two competing visions of how society shares risk and responsibility.  If Conservatives want to reach younger voters, we must stop speaking in abstract fiscal language and start speaking to everyday life. Explain how high taxes limit personal freedom. Explain that building a household, a business or a partnership is not a moral act, but a practical route to resilience when the state lets you down. Explain the limits of the state through lived experience, not ideology. 

And yes, we must make the emotional case too. We need to challenge young women’s distrust of men while acknowledging it, and remind them that most men are not the online caricatures they see. Society works best through strong partnerships between men and women in the work place and in private lives, not dependence on bureaucracies. The message is not “get married.” The message is: don’t let the state be your only safety net, “build your own”.  It is not an attack on single mothers or a call to dismantle welfare. Life goes wrong in ways the lucky often cannot imagine. The state should always be there for those who need it. But we must be honest about what it can and cannot do. 

Young voters, both men and women, are not hearing this argument because we are not making it. Until we do, the generational divide will grow and the welfare state will keep being sold as the answer to every problem, expanding in ways that strain both public finances and the social fabric.