- A Google outage has caused hundreds of websites and apps to crash, leaving Britons unable to access NHS services and their online bank accounts. The tech giant's Cloud service, which provides data storage and processing power for both users and services, began experiencing problems at around 7am today and affected its europe-west2 data centre in London. Services such as NHS England, Royal Mail and Rightmove went down as a result of the outage, which Google said was due to a power outage. And several banking apps including Halifax, Lloyds, Revolut and HSBC also experienced issues. Google issued an apology to anyone affected by the disruption and said it was 'experiencing an issue with multiple services'. The outage also affected legal proceedings, with the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) saying that it had 'hampered' barristers' attempts to clear the backlog in the courts. In a post on X, the CBA wrote: 'Cloud Video Platform (CVP) is down across large parts of England and Wales since 10am. 'Many of us today, both as prosecution and defence counsel, can not proceed with trials and other hearings. Our work to clear backlogs is hampered.' Likewise, HM Courts and Tribunals Service wrote on X: 'We're aware of an issue affecting Cloud Video Platform, used for some remote hearings.' The Russell Brand trial was also affected by the disruption, with some watching the proceedings online unable to access the footage. Some Britons were also unable to use their online banking services, leaving them unable to send or receive payments. By 9.00am, online tracker Down Detector showed 480 user-submitted reports of disruption affecting the Lloyds Bank app and website. Of those affected customers, 36 per cent said they were unable to log in, 31 per cent said they could not use online banking and a further 25 per cent said they could not use the app. Halifax Bank wrote on X that the company was 'aware some customers are having issues with our app and online'. The bud