Whilst I agree that it very very important that coursework should not be a hoop jumping exercise I can see a place for coursework in a Statistics GCSE.
The unfortunate situation is that the current, soon to be dead, statistics coursework for GCSE Mathematics has been a hoop jumping exercise with inappropriate statistical techniques being necesary to achieve the higher marks. By 'inappropriate' I mean techniques that the pupils use without having any understanding of what they are doing. As a result coursework has gained a bad reputation.
If those working on the new specification are able to include appropriate coursework then it may be helpful in gaining the interest of pupils in the area of statistical analysis. I could be that this is not possible at GCSE level and if this is the case then I would agree with those who think it should be left out.