<b><b>Lord Rooker&amp;’s planning reforms are designed to help those firms that, in his eyes, are trying to solve the housing crisis. He does not include many housebuilders among that number. Ben Roskrow talks to a planning minister who is demanding more from private sector developers</b></b><br><b>It&amp;’s an inauspicious start. Planning minister Lord Rooker, still just Jeff Rooker to those of us who have stumbled across him in his various political guises over the years, looks surprisingly comfortable in a swish if compact office in the House of Lords. But his first question to me on learning of the readership profile of Housebuilder is both revealing and slightly worrying. </b><br> &amp;“Why don&amp;’t your readers build more houses?&amp;” he asks in a West Midlands drawl that lends itself to such questions. &amp;“Normally,&amp;” he continues, &amp;“when manufacturers face a shortage they make more of their product - housebuilders aren&amp;’t.&amp;” <p></p><p> I am somewhat taken aback by this sudden interrogation as I have not yet sat down in the well appointed office or, indeed, taken my coat off. Both Lord Rooker and I know we are tight for time in this interview, but while he compensates by starting the discussion immediately, I am despairing that …