Editorial: ​Northern Ireland enjoys very generous financial support from London and unionists above all should be mindful of that

​​The DUP leader has said that Northern Ireland is falling behind the rest of the UK in terms of per capita spend on services. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson called for a review of the way the province is funded.

The data on this is in fact complex. NI is one of the most heavily funded parts of the UK. It also has long, depending on the year, had either the UK regional economy with the highest percentage of public money as a share of GDP, or among the highest - much more than half. This figure is sometimes misunderstood to mean percentage of the workforce in the public sector. It isn't – it is the amount of UK government money in the economy, and NI is drenched in it.

Or look at another statistic: in 2021/22, public spending per person in the UK as a whole was £11,897. In England, it was £11,549, Scotland £13,881, Wales: £13,401 and Northern Ireland: £14,062. NI was higher than any region in England.

We have more hospitals per person than in England. We do not raise money via devices such as water charges, and so on. Yet always there is a demand for more.

This is particularly perilous in unionists, because there is a danger of middle England becoming aware of the more generous funding on the Celtic fringe. Nationalists certainly won't be upset if English people are increasingly happy to see NI, Scotland and Wales depart. Being part of a nation means serving that nation as much as asking for its support, and unfortunately for unionists in those three countries only they are likely to be interested in the service part of the equation. Lavish Treasury funding never assuages separatist demands.

The idea, widely cited, that NI needs Stormont back for services is risible. The assembly has presided over massive waste. Unionists of course welcome NI’s huge financial support from London but we should want local fiscal discipline too.