 The 1972 Act abolished county boroughs, making them districts in two-tier counties.This, and the consequent loss of education, social services and libraries to county control, was strongly regretted by the larger towns outside the new metropolitan counties, such as Bristol, Plymouth, Stoke, Leicester and Nottingham.Michael Heseltine, who had been a junior local government minister during the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, was appointed as Secretary of State for the Environment (and thus responsible for local government) in John Major's first cabinet of 1990.