UK Government's coronavirus job retention scheme helps underpin support for businesses by relieving significant fixed-cost pressures, and the self-employed income support scheme enables many sole traders and freelancers to get through the crisis with the financial support that they desperately need. Only the UK Government, with its resources, could have played this role, and I welcome what they have done. Now, with those schemes having been announced, it's allowed us, as a Welsh Government, to target the more limited funding that we have into supporting those businesses in Wales that fall through the gaps.

The first element of our support was announced with a full package back in early March, on 18 March. That announcement included more than £350 million to help businesses with their non-domestic rates bills, and I'm pleased to tell Members that the new rate relief will be in place from today. It also included automatic small business grants of £10,000 for businesses across all sectors occupying properties with a rateable value of £12,000 and less, and £25,000 for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses occupying premises with a rateable value between £12,001 and £51,000. I'm incredibly grateful to local authorities who'll be dispersing these grants on our behalf. We're hoping that businesses with start receiving these grants this week.

On Monday, we subsequently announced our new £500 million economic resilience fund, which aims to plug the gaps in the support schemes announced by the UK Government. This Wales-only fund will support firms of all sizes, including social enterprises, with a focus on those that have not already benefited from the coronavirus grants already announced by Welsh Government. Now, the fund is made up of two main elements. Firstly, a new £100 million Development Bank of Wales business loan scheme. And then, secondly, a £400 million emergency grant pot. In total, we've committed more than £1.7 billion into mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on our economy.

Now, the Development Bank of Wales has already received over 500 applications for loans. I'll be meeting with the high street banks again tomorrow, and I’ll be raising with them the need to be more flexible and more considerate in responding to clients, particularly for those self-employed or who need bridging support between now and June.

At this point I'd like to pay tribute to the staff at both the Development Bank of Wales and at Business Wales, and also my officials who've been working day and night to develop the schemes. The Business Wales helpline has now dealt with almost 4,000 queries since 9 March. I'd also like to salute the many Welsh companies and universities who are now directly engaged in addressing specific challenges. This includes considerable activity in the production of ventilators, face shields, PPE, beds, mattresses and sheeting. We're not merely relying on current supply routes, but building alternatives where the demand cannot be met.

I'd briefly like to touch on our response on rail, bus and air services. The ambition of Welsh Government remains to create a sustainable integrated public transport network, including community transport right across Wales, and I've made a series of decisions to help to safeguard public transport across Wales. These were announced in my written statement just yesterday. I've agreed a package of support worth up to £40 million for Transport for Wales over the next few months to allow us to give certainty to rail passengers in Wales. As well as recommending that local authorities continue to pay a minimum of 75 per cent of the contract value for school and other contracted local passenger services, I've now injected £29 million of grants to help bus operators through the inevitable uncertainty of the next three months. And finally, after discussions with Eastern Airways, I've temporarily suspended the Cardiff to Anglesey public service obligation air service for an initial period of three months.

So, to close, my key message to businesses and to employees is very clear: if you had a good business in 2019, we want to support you to have a good business in 2021; and if you had a good job in 2019, we want to support you to have a good job in 2021. We must work together with compassion, with urgency, and with care to get through the significant challenges that we face and to come out the other side to the fairer, more equal and kinder economy that I think we all wish to see.