Does Labour support the benefits cap or not?

Does anyone, anywhere, understand the Labour Party’s position on the government’s intention to cap welfare benefits? I ask as a member of the Labour Party who is, of course, anxious to spread the message far and wide but is worried by what seem to be certain, um, inconsistencies of approach.

So, on Question Time last week David Lammy conceded that he agreed wholeheartedly with the idea of a benefits cap but thinks the various dissenting Church of England bishops are absolutely right to criticise the idea of a benefits cap and that the government is penalising the poor. He got quite worked up about it, railing against the injustice while conceding that his party had close to identical plans.

His position on the issue seems to me less a case of having your cake and eating it, as one of having your cake, eating it, vomiting it up into a plastic bucket and then sucking it up through a straw. I realise that this is not a pleasant image and would like to apologise.

Lammy also said that the benefits cap should have a regional element, implying — rightly — that £26,000 would buy you a small hole in the ground in London, but almost the entirety of, say, Wigan. Sure. But shouldn’t there then be a regional element to public sector pay, on much the same grounds?