LONDON — Parents in England will no longer be charged burial and cremation fees for children after Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the government would set up a fund to cover the charges.

The announcement on Saturday came after a campaign by an opposition Labour lawmaker, Carolyn Harris, who went into debt to bury her 8-year-old son, Martin, who died in a road accident in 1989.

The charges were waived for parents in Wales last year.

Mrs. May said in a statement, “In the raw pain of immediate loss, it cannot be right that grieving parents should have to worry about how to meet the funeral costs for a child they hoped to see grow into adulthood.”

“In the darkest moment of any parent’s life there is little light, but there can be support,” she added.