It is rare for leaders of political parties to agree much about anything. But The Sunday Times’s story last week which revealed that peers had been willing to take money in exchange for amending legislation led to a sudden outbreak of harmony. Gordon Brown spoke of “emergency sanctions” being required, David Cameron of the need to “change the law” and Nick Clegg about “one rule for lawmakers and another for everybody else”. Indeed, Baroness Royall, Labour leader of the Lords, has seized on the report as a means of accelerating much-needed reforms and bringing in “transparency”.

The reason for this rapport is that the political classes have known about these abuses for years and done almost nothing about them. In fact they have made the situation worse with half-baked reforms that have left the upper house in a strange limboland. There has been an influx of appointed placemen who seem more interested in making money than in public service. MPs are equally aware that the scandal has the potential to do considerable harm and they, too, will get contaminated in the toxic fallout. In a letter to The Times last week, Lord Falkland recounted how many years ago a peer had told him he was making more money in the Lords than he ever did as an MP. “I have been fearful of trouble of this kind ever since,” he wrote.

That part of the public which has not cynically written off all politicians as corrupt has been shocked by the revelations. The fact that Lord Archer, a convicted perjurer, and Lord Black, who is in prison in America for criminal fraud, should still be members of the upper chamber is absurd. The same can apply for those who are “nondoms” and avoid most UK taxes while taking taxpayers’ money for attending the House. The government now says, belatedly, that it will expel them.

That is only part of the problem. Removing most of the hereditaries was the right thing to do, but the government then opted for a classic British fudge. Thus we now have 743 peers, of whom 92 are hereditaries, 26 are bishops and 625 are life peers. Several of these gave money to political parties in the expectation of gaining peerages. Few were disappointed.

The result has been a chamber with some former MPs being able to operate without the scrutiny that now exists in the Commons, thanks in part to this newspaper’s stories on “cash for questions”. Less transparency means they can exploit grey areas of acceptable behaviour. Lobbyists detected that the upper house could be a more profitable area for them and one in which they could influence legislation with little detection or accountability. But while some peers seek to exploit these loopholes, we should remember that others do sound work and serve a valuable role in revising often hastily compiled legislation from the Commons.

It would not take too much to stop the abuse. An independent commissioner for standards, clear guidelines and expulsions for those who break the rules should be sufficient for the short term. In the meantime there should be rapid and full-blown reform of the House. It should become wholly elected; anything else in a 21st century democracy would be an anachronism. It should have far fewer members – perhaps just 200 – and they should be properly paid and held accountable. It should do away with the archaic title of the House of Lords and be renamed the Senate. With a clearly defined constitutional role as a revising chamber for the Commons, it would at last have clarity of purpose and end the muddle that has caused this scandal.