The point..... well made by others.... is for pilots to evaluate the risk...wear lifejackets and take a PLB ( a lot more useful than telling the rescue services where your sunken helicopter is !).
Here here, but and its a big but, for a significant portion of the year around UK shores a life jacket and plb will do nothing but enable location of your superchilled corpse if a survival suite is not being worn.
The proposed changes are half baked, if floats are deemed necessary, surely life raft and/or immersion suites are critical items as well? Or do we expect a perfect emergency landing in seas calm enough for passengers to remain tucked inside the cockpit until rescue?
What is missing is a range of comfortable(!) immersion suites that don't necessarily need to combat north sea temps in winter for an hour where 30 minutes survival from Feb to September would cover most GA movements.
4 x immersion suites +4 PLB are more versatile cheaper and better than floats?
Last time I enquired the cost of a daily use lightweight immersion suite designed for helicopter crew with a zippered neck was around £1000.
Mickjoebill