evidence: The level of subvention Northern Ireland receives from the UK exchequer has become, like so many things in the North, politicised. It is regularly – and spuriously – conflated with the economic cost of a united Ireland, which is an entirely different concept. In reality, the transfers that go from London to Belfast each year – they amounted to £9.4 billion (€10.8 billion) in 2019 – merely reflect the North's annual budget deficit, the difference between what it raises in taxes and what it spends. [...] It notes that the North’s annual subvention is dictated by three financial flows: taxes raised in Northern Ireland; expenditure spent in Northern Ireland; and also – crucially – expenditure spent on Northern Ireland or the North’s share of UK-wide spending.