Plaid Cymru demands Wales gets same funding as Scotland

Plaid Cymru's leader has said her party will demand Wales gets the same funding deal as Scotland in a hung parliament.

Leanne Wood said "parity with Scotland" would be the price of Plaid's co-operation in Westminster.

With the SNP and the Green Party, Plaid say they will work with a minority Labour UK government - but not the Conservatives.

Meanwhile, Labour's shadow Welsh secretary said Wales had missed out on funding, but gets more than England.

Asked what she would want from a hung parliament, Ms Wood told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme that Plaid would seek "parity with Scotland in terms of finance and powers".

She said if Wales was funded on the same terms as Scotland, it would received another £1.2bn, "which would make a great difference in terms of cuts and investment into public services, which is much needed in Wales".

The Welsh government's budget of around £15bn a year is subject to the Barnett formula.

Devised in the 1970s, the formula decides how much the devolved administrations receive from the UK government every year.

Carwyn Jones has called for change on the Barnett formula

First Minister Carwyn Jones, who says Wales is short-changed by Westminster, has compared Barnett to "fixing a hole in the roof with Blu-Tack and cardboard".

Labour has ruled out wholesale reform of the funding formula.

'Less generous settlements'

However, it has pledged to look at topping up Welsh funding under a "Barnett plus" system after the general election.

Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme, Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith said: "The Barnett formula over the last few years hasn't worked well for Wales.

"Let's be clear about that. Carwyn's absolutely right.

"There has been convergence so-called, ie, Wales has had less generous settlements out of Barnett.

"But Barnett still puts around £115 per head into Wales for every £100 spent in England.

"So even though Barnett isn't giving us as much as we really need, it still gives us more than the English get on average per capita."