General election: Plaid Cymru seek funding parity with Scotland

Plaid Cymru is to make fair funding for Wales the price for supporting a minority Labour government in the event of a hung parliament.

The Welsh nationalist party wants "parity with Scotland in terms of powers and resources, and that will be a priority for our negotiating team", said Leanne Wood, its leader.

The party has just three MPs and pollsters believe it will do well just to hold those seats, let alone make gains.

However with projections of no outright winner on May 7, Ms Wood believes that if Labour does not get enough seats even with the support of the Scottish National party, Plaid could play a role in forming a government.

"It looks like people do not have faith and trust in the two main parties to give them a full mandate, so in that scenario the smaller parties have a role to play," she said. "We've said we'll work with others and co-operate with our colleagues in the SNP and any Greens that are elected in England to pursue the areas where we share common ground."

Ms Wood made clear that an improved funding deal for Wales was the party's key demand.

Plaid has calculated that Wales would need an extra £1.5bn - on top of the £15bn it receives in its annual block grant - to put it on a par with Scotland.

In the TV election debate on April 16, Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, declined to spell out what would constitute fair funding for Wales but he conceded the current settlement needed to be improved.

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"There are cuts that could be made, that wouldn't harm those with the least. That's the basic problem we have with austerity. The last five years have seen those with the least paying the most and we know that the worst is yet to come," Ms Wood said.

She highlighted reform of national insurance, which she said could raise £10bn, with a similar amount raised through ending pensions tax relief for the better off.

If Plaid is realistic about its chances of achieving a breakthrough this time, Ms Wood seems more focused on the 2016 Welsh assembly polls.

The day after the TV debates when she might have been expected to canvass in key Westminster constituencies where Plaid is in with a chance, she was in the Labour-held stronghold of Rhondda, where Chris Bryant is MP.

Ms Wood represents the area in the Welsh assembly.

As one Plaid official explained: "Leanne has always argued that if the party is ever to have a majority in the assembly, then it's in areas like this that we need to make a breakthrough."

She is widely seen to have performed strongly in the two nationwide leaders' TV debates. An opinion poll after the first debate gave Plaid 12 per cent, a gain of 3 percentage points, the biggest change of any of the Welsh parties although it still trails Labour, the Conservatives and Ukip.

"The revival of democracy in Scotland shows what can be done. I very much hope that we get the opportunity here in Wales when we see improvements in our economy to have a similar conversation and a vote like they had in Scotland," she says.

Although the party is looking for an increased budget from Westminster, her longer-term ambition is to build a self-sufficient economy and end what she calls the "scandal" that Wales still receives "handouts" from Brussels.

"Tomorrow it would be a challenge but there is nothing to suggest that over time we couldn't get to the point where, like every other country in the world, we raise enough to cover the cost of our public services and social welfare state provision. Every other country in the world can manage it. There is nothing inferior in people in Wales that means we couldn't manage it."

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