An official petition with more than 203,000 signatures has triggered a parliamentary debate in the UK on legalising assisted suicide.

Critics have decried the debate as ‘ideological’ and lamented the lack of focus on palliative care.

The petition calls on the Government to allocate time for ‘assisted dying’ to be fully debated in the House of Commons and to allow a vote on the issue.

It adds: “Terminally ill people who are mentally sound and near the end of their lives should not suffer unbearably against their will.”

However, Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of the campaign group Care Not Killing, said: “Instead of discussing this dangerous and ideological policy, we should be talking about how to fix the UK’s broken and patchy palliative care system so everyone can have a dignified death.”

Responding to the petition, the Ministry of Justice said assisted suicide “is a matter for Parliament to decide and an issue of conscience for individual parliamentarians rather than one for government policy”.

The Petitions debate will not end with a binding vote.

MPs last voted on assisted suicide in 2015. That bill was defeated by 330 votes to 118.