Re: trial lessons being pleasure flights
This one has indeed been done to death in all the usual places. One can rest assured that if the regs were tightened most smaller schools would close. AIUI, the minimum cost of getting an AOC is about £20,000 and that is a very simple one.
I don't think the CAA wants this to happen. The end result would be even more people going to Florida, etc, not to mention a decline in GA activity as a whole.
It's easy to find somebody "in the CAA" or "formerly in the CAA" who feels otherwise. I've met current CAA employees who want to ban all single pilot jet flights in UK airspace, who want every pilot in the airways to have an ATPL, you name it. Get any CAA CofA inspector talking privately and you will get loads of "inside info on what is going to happen very soon".
Same if you speak to people at NATS. If some of them got half a chance they would ban business jets from UK airspace, on the grounds that they have 2.5x more busts than BA's Nigels.
Thankfully none of these people are policymakers.