In short, the answer is yes you certainly can. However, it would be fair to say that it may take many months if not years for claims to be resolved.
It is common knowledge that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak has recently confirmed that the Treasury will withdraw its Job Retention Scheme pay outs over the next 5 months. This is however subject to any further announcements that the Government may make.
It is anticipated that the employment tribunals in England and Wales will be inundated with claims. Indeed, Judge Barry Clark the president of the employment tribunals for England and Wales confirmed recently “the impact coronavirus is most likely to have is simply when the scheme starts being wound up and we begin seeing employers reaching those decisions that furloughing arrangements have allowed them to defer”.
A word of caution was noted by Law Society president Simon Davis “given difficulties with holding in person hearings and the likely surge of cases arising from loss of employment, changes to terms, furlough and other consequences of Covid-19, it is important that employment tribunals are able to get on with delivering justice”.
Many employment law practitioners will know that cases are often listed for hearing more than 12 months from when the request was first made. More complex cases can take 2 years to get listed.
It is in my view inevitable that lengthy waiting times will result unless more resources are placed into the tribunal system.