A former high court judge has been appointed to lead an independent commission being held in the aftermath of the baby ashes scandal.

Lord Bonomy, who retired from the bench last year, will chair the group looking at the approach to cremation of infants and the disposal of their ashes across Scotland.

Public Health Minister Michael Matheson said he was the right person to take forward this "important piece of work".

The commission will not investigate any individual cases.

Mr Matheson explained: "The commission will look at the policies and procedures in place to ensure that wherever you are in the country, the same guidance is followed.

"Losing a child is a traumatic experience and families should have confidence the correct processes and practices are in place, so they can get the support that they need."

He said the commission was established to ensure lessons can be learned from the scandal, and Lord Bonomy had the experience to take it forward properly.

Scottish Labour's health spokesperson, Jackie Baillie, said: "We need to ensure that bereaved parents will never again have to deal with the horror of not knowing what has happened to the ashes of their much loved children.

"However the commission is not going far enough in looking for answers as to why these practices occurred in the first place, why proper monitoring of crematoria was not undertaken, how far spread the practice was and most importantly what happened to these children's ashes?"

Lord Bonomy was QC for Lord Cullen's inquiry into the 1996 Dunblane massacre and was also a presiding judge for the Inter-national Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia – which was set up by the United Nations to prosecute serious crimes committed during the wars in the Balkan states.

The rest of the members of the commission will be announced soon and are expected to include representatives from local authorities, the funeral industry and relevant charities.

Mr Matheson announced last month that the independent commission was being established to examine the policies in place for handling ashes and cremated remains.

It emerged last December that Mortonhall crematorium in Edinburgh secretly buried the ashes of babies for decades without the knowledge of the families.

Since then other local authorities have been implicated.

Aberdeen City Council announced last month it was carrying out an audit after it was revealed that while 24 babies had been cremated at Aberdeen crematorium in the past five years, on no occasions were any ashes given to their families.

Glasgow City Council apologised to one family and joined calls for an independent inquiry into the practices of publicly owned crematoria to be held.

Former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angiolini is already chairing an investigation into practices at Mortonhall crematorium.

Lord Bonomy's commission will work closely with Dame Elish and seek to learn from her inquiries.