He does indeed.
Most UK PPL students spend a year or so getting their PPL, due to a mixture of
bad weather,
poor quality of instruction,
instructors not turning up,
planes being away,
planes "going tech" (broken),
a walk-in "trial lesson" (e.g. somebody's birthday treat) getting priority over prebooked students,
having to save up the money for each lesson,
being unable to learn to fly
lack of technical understanding of flying and/or navigation
etc.
Somebody who has passed their writtens and then does the lot in 21 days will - given the same standard of instruction, etc - usually absorb more than somebody who has taken a year.
There will always be exceptions (last 2 items in the above list) but they cannot be used against the general principle. I know of a number of perpetual students in the 150hr / £20,000 bracket and some of them are bound to turn up in Florida but that doesn't mean anything.