Residents of rural areas who are unemployed, young, old or disabled are increasingly unable to access vital services such as healthcare and retail facilities due to extensive cuts to evening and weekend bus services, MPs have warned.

Those affected by the restricted transport timetables also loose the opportunity to participate in employment, education or voluntary work.

The cross-party Transport Committee, in a review of England's bus services outside London, warns that even deeper cuts in bus services are likely to happen in 2012-13, as local authorities struggle with reduced budgets.

The committee calls for the concessionary travel scheme to be preserved so that the elderly and disabled continue to enjoy free bus travel, although an answer for reduced bus services seems to not be being delivered.

Launching the report, Louise Ellman, chair of the Committee said: "The Government claims it wants to see better bus services with many more smartcard-enabled journeys. Yet, following the Government's Spending Review, we have seen a significant number of bus services withdrawn around the country and there is every indication that fares are set to rise well above the rate of inflation in some areas."

Ellman also reckons that over 70% of local authorities have reduced, or are planing to reduce the funding for supported bus services, that which has made most operators withdraw services or increase fares.

In one area, Cambridgeshire, the plan was to cut all funding support for local buses, but a legal challenge forced local government to rethink.

"For the most part it is rural, evening and Sunday services that are most affected, although in some areas every scrap of funding has been withdrawn from subsidised bus services. In some cases, whole sections of the bus network have been scaled back with little or no proper consultation," she added.

According to the Commons Select Committee, buses are the most available and frequently used mode of public transport in England, carrying two thirds of all passenger journeys .

The committee warns ministers they cannot wash their hands of all responsibility for local bus services and it calls on the Department for Transport to monitor the extent of service cutbacks made this year.