Ah well GEP, you definitely come up against my ego there.
As a young gingerbeer, I was a bit of an early starter (O levels at 14, degree at 20, CEng at 25) and it was a regularly easy way to get my hackles up saying things like "no, you can't do this yet, you're too young", often heard from people older but less qualified than I was. It's something that still gets my goat on occasion (both ways, as I don't like hearing that anybody is too old to do something either).
I've never, myself, been overly fond of minimum age/hours for anything - either somebody's good enough or they're not. But it is an easy way for lazy regulators to save themselves work, in a multitude of environments. This may or may not be such a case.
If LAA is considering "need" in particular areas - so far as I know they didn't say that to me, nor to anybody else we've heard from in this debate. It would be a fair point, but perhaps they should be open about it if using that criterion.
G