The Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude has said that the coalition government has a common ground in their belief to "give people much more power to shape their lives and to control the environment in which they live".

Speaking in advance of today's Queen's Speech, Mr Maude hailed what he called a "huge area of agreement" between Conservative and Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers.

"This is a radical agenda, a bold agenda," he told Today programme presenter Evan Davis. "There is high level of comfort with our Lib Dem partners. We find that our minds are in the same place on a lot of things.

And he acknowledged that the government's legislative plan would have to reflect the new reality of a power-sharing government.

"There are compromises, obviously there are," he said. "But actually there are compromises within every party anyway if you have a broad based party it is in itself a coalition. This a broader and a more formal coalition.

"Does everybody get everything they want, no, but has that ended up with a lowest common denominator, bland nothingness, absolutely not. This is a radical agenda, a bold agenda."

Asked about David Cameron's decision to back down over reforming the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers Mr Maude said that its members "will remain robustly independent", adding that the affair was "a minor drama, not many injured'.

Get in touch with Today via email , Twitter or Facebook or text us on 84844.