When the course went from 40 hours to 55 hours the CAA management who were pilots then, made a conscious decision to keep it to 55 hours flight time even though JAR-FCL said otherwise. The current decision will force people to do max STD and min Flight Time, a bad move.
Perhaps it should be contested on the grounds that it is not compliant with ICAO and the UK has not filed a difference from ICAO.