MPs have called on the government to press ahead with changes to the way appointments are made to the House of Lords.
In a brief report published on Wednesday, the Commons public administration committee said reforms could be made with "immediate effect".
The committee was setting out its views in response to the government's July 2008 white paper on reform of the upper House.
The cross-party group accepted that plans for a fully or largely elected Lords would eventually make its proposal "obsolete".
But it added "that moment is some years off even at best" and said ministers should "bring fairness and transparency to the interim arrangements between now and the completion of reform".
"The existing powers of the House of Lords appointments commission are not set in statute; they could therefore be amended without recourse to statute," argued the report.
The MPs concluded: "In advance of legislation, indeed with immediate effect, the government should move to a system where parties supply longlists of nominees to the commission, and decisions on membership are made from those lists by the commission against tests of both probity and public interest."
In addition, said the committee, the appointments commission should be made independent of government.
"The government's new proposal that the House of Lords appointments commission should be accountable to the prime minister fails to establish that independence, and is in contradiction to the expressed will of the House of Commons," said the report.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd