Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
Oral evidence: Innovation showcase, HC 523
Tuesday 15 July 2025
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 15 July 2025.
Members present: Dame Chi Onwurah (Chair); Emily Darlington; George Freeman; Dr Allison Gardner; Jon Pearce; Steve Race; Dr Lauren Sullivan; Adam Thompson.
Questions 33 - 35
Witnesses
I: Stuart Cotterell, Business Development Manager, Locks 4 Vans; and Jordan Brocklehurst, Head of Innovation and Chief Designer, Locks 4 Vans.
Witnesses: Stuart Cotterell and Jordan Brocklehurst.
Chair: Welcome to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s innovation showcase. The Committee wants to understand how the UK supports innovators and what more we can do. To inform our work, we select an innovator to share their story before our main evidence sessions. Our members take turns at selecting the innovator, and this week our innovator is selected by Dr Lauren Sullivan. I will hand over to Lauren to tell us about this week’s showcase.
Q33 Dr Sullivan: Thank you, Chair. I visited Locks4Vans probably three or four years ago when I was a cabinet member for business. I met the founder, Chris Batterbee, who founded the company over 20 years ago. I was absolutely blown away by his imagination, innovation and passion regarding what was, and still is, the incredibly terrible crime of people stealing tools from vans. Of course, we know that the people who steal tools do not just steal the tools, which is lots of money, but livelihoods as well. Chris saw that there was a gap in the market and has been working with some incredibly talented people in Gravesend on how they can solve this. Without further ado, I welcome our visitors to the stage and hand over to you guys. Thank you.
Stuart Cotterell: I am Stuart Cotterell, the business development manager for Locks4Vans. To start, I would like to thank Dr Lauren Sullivan for the opportunity to come down and speak to the Committee.
First, to give a bit of background, we are Locks4Vans and we have been trading for approximately 23 years. We are very much a small business that did well. We started in a garage, and now we employ over 70 people in Lauren’s constituency. We focus a huge amount of our time on development. With van crime, we find that as we develop a new product the criminals are already trying to get over that product. We are constantly playing a cat-and-mouse game. If you look around at some of the largest fleets in the country, from BT to Tesco, they carry our product. All sorts of different businesses carry our product.
We have seen in the past couple of years a big increase in inquiries for leisure vehicles such as camper vans or motorhomes. This is due to the increase in staycations. There are a lot more people deciding that they just want to jump in a camper van and go across the UK, or across Europe, but to date there are very limited security products on the market for leisure vehicles.
There was one particular instance when a lady approached us. She had converted a van into a camper van and was driving across Europe. There were times when people had approached the vehicle, while she was in it trying to sleep, to gain access. With that brief, we gave it to Jordan in the innovation department to see what we could come up with and what we could develop for that market. Over to Jordan.
Jordan Brocklehurst: A typical commercial vehicle lock is buried in the door and will operate from the outside via a key, which is all well and good for protecting tools, but there was an opportunity for a product to be controlled from the inside. It is a very tried and tested lock; we just needed to find a way to control it from inside the door rather than reinvent the wheel. We took our hook lock, which is rated to 250 kg of pull force, enhanced it and attached a control cable, which now allows somebody from inside the vehicle to operate the hook. We know that the hook is very effective. The whole system was taken to a company called Sold Secure, which is the authority on the standard of security for this sort of product. It was attack tested for five minutes, using the real-world tools, aggression and techniques that we sadly have to protect against, after which the door remained secured. It was proven by them to work very well.
It is popular, or will become so. We have now launched it and prototyped it in very many vehicles. It is very versatile. The hook can go in many doors and in many positions, and the dial itself can be fitted inside the door to suit the configuration. It is very customisable. The installation process is very non-invasive. The hook is buried in the door and the dial is mounted through the door skin. Everything else is concealed, so visually it is very subtle and discreet inside the van. That is important. Some retirees spend their life savings on a £70,000 van. The last thing they want to do is bolt a big white box to a door post, so this blends in nicely with original fixtures. We have addressed some of the visual complaints in the market, going ahead.
It is installer-friendly and relatively non-invasive. It is a product that can be fitted at the end of a conversion. If you have bought a new vehicle, you don’t have to strip it down way back to bare metal. It can pretty much go anywhere. All you need are three holes to mount it. It can be configured horizontally or vertically to suit the door structure, so it is very flexible.
In terms of safety, not only does the dial control the lock—so while you are in at night you can check that your doors are locked, much like you would at home before you go to bed at night—but now the dial indexes in. Not only is the hook locked, but the dial is restricted as well. That means the mechanism that allows the hook to move is actually jammed, so the 250 kg is increased as it has additional reinforcement. If you were camping in hot weather in most summer holidays, especially recently, you might want to have your windows open. A regular dial could be vulnerable to an attack through an open window by knocking it to release the hook, whereas now you have an extra tamperproof feature. It keeps your vehicle secure, your camper safe and the interior looks smart. It is all at a very reasonable price point for all the added benefits it brings.
That is the product. We are innovating all the time. There will probably be a new product every month; this is just the current one at the minute.
Q34 Dr Sullivan: Thank you very much. Is it true that you were sitting in a van—
Jordan Brocklehurst: Yes, I was. You have to get into the mindset of both the user and the attacker. You have to think, “How would I want to use this?”, and, “If I was to attack it, how can I make it as difficult as possible?” I regularly sit in vans, looking at the doors and trying to find where the most secure placement would be, which is fun. Every brief is different and keeps us on our toes.
Q35 Dr Sullivan: That is thinking inside the box, isn’t it?
Jordan Brocklehurst: Yes, literally.
Chair: That is absolutely brilliant. As a Committee, we believe very strongly that innovation can take place everywhere, in every region and in every sphere of human activity. We had not previously identified that innovation could take place in a van but now we know that it can, and we can see the benefits. Thank you very much for presenting your innovation showcase to us.