Britain has sidelined the minister responsible for financial services from addressing the impact on the sector of leaving the EU, a shakeup that a senior bank executive called a “vote of no confidence” in the industry’s main government contact.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, commercial secretary at the Treasury, has had Brexit’s impact on financial services added to her official portfolio, the Treasury said, confirming a change that had been made without fanfare several weeks ago.

The new arrangement means Simon Kirby, the Treasury’s economic secretary, is no longer in charge of overseeing the impact of Brexit on Britain’s large banking sector.

Kirby’s post is known informally as “City minister”, as the government’s liaison to the finance industry based in the City of London.

“Clearly, it’s a sign of a vote of no confidence in Kirby,” said one senior bank executive, who discussed the change in roles on condition of anonymity to avoid taking sides publicly in a political personnel matter.

“Kirby is not responsible for Brexit even though it’s the biggest issue facing the City.”

The Treasury said Kirby would still have the same role as his predecessors as City minister, overseeing the government’s overall relationship with the financial sector. Having a second minister look at Brexit reflected “the importance we place on this area”, it said in an e-mail to Reuters in response to a request for comment on the change.

“Although the lack of continuity at this point in the process is alarming, frankly we don’t care who it is the government chooses to oversee the process, as long as they can provide some clarity to the financial services sector,” the opposition Labour Party’s City spokesman Jonathan Reynolds told Reuters in an e-mailed statement.

Of the seven people who have held the post of City minister since it was created in 2008, Kirby, 52, is the first without either a background in financial services or a PhD in economics.