Evidence to the Science and Technology Committee from other academic disciplines included scepticism of the weight being placed on mathematical models during the pandemic. For example Professor Sir John Kay, Economist and Fellow in Economics, St 152 Correspondence from Rt Hon Greg Clark and Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt to Matt Hancock, 22 June 2021 153 After the Report was agreed by the Committees a response from Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, was received. 154 Q743 155 Oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 4 November 2020, HC (2019–21) 136, Q282 156 Q1300 157 See, for example: oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 25 March 2020, HC (2019–21) 136, Q40 and Q42. 158 Oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 10 June 2020, HC (2019–21) 136, Q889 159 For example, see: SAGE 14, 10 March 2020, paragraph 36 160 Oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 10 June 2020, HC (2019–21) 136, Q841 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date 43 John’s College, University of Oxford, told the Science and Technology Committee in June 2020 that models did not necessarily respond well to change and should not be used to make predictions: economic models tend to work pretty well as long as nothing much changes, which does not help them to be a great deal of use. What really matters from this point of view is understanding the nature of the underlying change. […] In my view, the use of economic models and other models is not so much to make predictions as to give people better insights into what is going on, and that is the way in which models ought to be used.161 Professor Carol Propper, Professor of Economics, Imperial College London and President of the Royal Economic Society, illustrated that assumptions in models had not always borne out and there was a need for up-to-date data: To give one more example of the need for that data, when we shut down hospitals