Professor Catherine BarnardSenior Fellow, UKICE

Catherine Barnard is Professor in European Union Law and Employment Law at the University of Cambridge. Her UK in a Changing Europe fellowship project examines the immigration/worker protection boundary, in respect of a marginalised community which has long been overlooked. The project looks at the impact of labour migration on the East of England. EU migrants largely work in the fields and in food processing factories – doing the three Ps 'Picking, packing and plucking'. Their living and working conditions are poor and they are not well integrated into the local community. Post Brexit, the region has also seen a sharp increase in non-EU farm workers such as those from Ukraine and Kazakhstan, through the UK's new seasonal workers pilot scheme. COVID-19 has highlighted and intensified existing health inequalities, particularly experienced by those facing precarity, namely key workers working in farms and factories in the region. She is also interested in how EU migrants enforce their rights. The project builds on Catherine’s recent pilot work on pragmatic law expanding the evidence base from Great Yarmouth across the Eastern region of England.