In 1971, Labour regained Bexley Council and pushed forward with the plan to merge Chis and Sid and Hurstmere into a single comprehensive, although in May 1972 this plan was denied permission to proceed by the Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Margaret Thatcher. As a step toward the ultimate establishment of comprehensive education throughout the borough, in 1973 the council announced plans to remove the words "secondary modern", "technical high", and "grammar" from all schools under their jurisdiction, resulting in protests from both staff and the parents' association at Chis and Sid. In 1974, the Conservatives then regained the council, proceeding to effectively ignore Labour's 1976 Education Act that required the comprehensivisation of all secondary education. The chair of Bexley's Educational Committee, Brian Sams, insisted that the borough would not implement the legally required changes until every school in the area had the facilities capable of supporting a "curriculum adapted to the needs of pupils of all abilities". In the 1979 general election, Thatcher was elected Prime Minister, and the pressure for comprehensivisation from central government ceased, allowing Bexley Borough to continue using the grammar school system.