No... If that were the case they could have said 'we can't give you a figure... We'll need to take you up in the air and then judge'. The 2-3 hours was a ballpark figure.
When I first called, I had just gotten my PPL so I hadn't yet had time to de-skill. It's now 3 months since I got my licence and I haven't yet gone solo again, partly due to the slowness of the CAA and partly because the checking-out process has been protracted. Though I haven't yet got to the 3 hour mark.