A barrister and politician, the son of George Nicholas Budgen (d. 1942), businessman, and his wife, Mary Helen, née Bather. He was baptized into the Church of England by the grandfather of Enoch Powell, a politician who much later significantly influenced his life. His father, a captain in the army, was killed at Tobruk.
In 1974, when the Conservative MP Enoch Powell left the party and resigned from his seat over their policy on the EEC, only six weeks before the 1974 general election, Budgen was selected to stand for the Conservatives in Powell's old seat: Wolverhampton South West.
(Source: Patrick Cosgrave)