No, things have not changed with regard to CPL/ATPL - ATPL still comes with hours.
If your son plans to do distance learning with short courses for the ground school, I can thoroughly recommend Bristol Ground School, for everything except the specific helicopter subjects. With the CAA exams, that was only Principles of Flight, and I managed that on my own, as did many others. I have no idea what will be happening with JAR, since there's no syllabus as yet. Someone posted on here that the CAA rotary exams have been extended to July 2002; if this is the case, he might still be able to do those, though there may be a problem with lack of courses.