 The son of Barnard Robert Swanton Bush, of Norton St Philip, Somerset, and of Elizabeth Bush (née Weeks), Bush was educated at Monkton Combe School and Balliol College, Oxford, graduating BA and MA.Bush is a career farmer, owning a mixed farm at Heywood in western Wiltshire.He served from 1995 to 1999 as non-executive chairman of West Midland Farmers Association Ltd, a regional agricultural co-operative previously based in Melksham, Wiltshire.