Chancellor Rishi Sunak introduced the SDA in his March budget allowing buyers of new machinery to claim a 130% capital allowance on purchases.

The Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) has now joined six other industry trade bodies in writing  to the Chancellor asking for the scheme to be extended to include leasing and short-term hire.

CECA Director of External Affairs Marie-Claude Hemming said: “Our members lease and hire  plant as it is often the most efficient means of ensuring access to the latest machinery when and where it  is needed, and hence is more efficient in project delivery.

“The super deduction allowance simply doesn’t reflect the practices of many civil engineering firms on the  ground.

“In our industry, where plant and machinery is invariably highly specialised, around 70% of it is  hired on a project-by-project basis.

“If the Chancellor were to extend the super deduction allowance to include short-term hire and leasing,  it would provide an added incentive to firms to use the newest plant and machinery, with obvious  environmental benefits, as well as feeding through to efficiencies in project delivery.

“The infrastructure sector is central to the UK Government’s aim of ‘levelling-up’, and hence we call on  the Government to make this change, to ensure our industry can delivery the infrastructure businesses and  communities rely upon with higher rates of efficiency, productivity, and fewer carbon emissions.”